


Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and the Men of Letters

by San Antonio Rose (ramblin_rosie)



Series: Conversations at Mamma's / Mechanicsburg Men of Letters [3]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on LiveJournal, F/M, Friendship, John Winchester School of Parenting, Spark Castiel, Spark Charlie Bradbury, Spark Dean Winchester, Spark Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 95,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramblin_rosie/pseuds/San%20Antonio%20Rose
Summary: One world ruled by mad science. One world caught in the crossfire of supernatural war. Each saved multiple times by a pair of brothers whose exploits became the stuff of pulp fiction.One portal between them.The timing of their conjunction may be a complete fluke for all anyone on either side knows. But when the Doom Bell summons the Winchester brothers to Mechanicsburg, the course of history in both worlds is irrevocably changed... and that's a better thing for Gil Wulfenbach than he could ever guess, to say nothing of the Winchesters themselves.
Relationships: Agatha Heterodyne & Tarvek Sturmvoraus & Gilgamesh "Gil" Wulfenbach, Agatha Heterodyne/Gilgamesh "Gil" Wulfenbach, Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs/Zeetha Daughter of Chump, Theopholous "Theo" DuMedd/Sleipnir O'Hara
Series: Conversations at Mamma's / Mechanicsburg Men of Letters [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022472
Kudos: 1





	1. The Rift Opens

**Author's Note:**

> I have a vague memory of seeing this kind of story prompted on a meme, or suggested to me (by cathalpicard/Goeno, maybe?), or mentioned by somebody _somewhere_ —within the last year, I think, but before I actually got hooked on Girl Genius this spring—but blessed if I can find the comment again. It had to do with Dean being a spark; I do remember that much. I suspect, though, that whoever had the idea didn’t expect it to take quite this turn or be quite this long (I sure didn’t). Nevertheless, whoever it was, consider yourself acknowledged!
> 
> This story goes AU for SPN between 9.04 “Slumber Party” and 9.05 “Dog Dean Afternoon”—with the assumption that the Years That Weren’t actually did pass on the calendar, putting those episodes in the summer of 2015 rather than 2013—and for _Girl Genius_ from “[The Doom Bell Rings All Over Town](http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111123)” (Volume 12: _Agatha Heterodyne and the Siege of Mechanicsburg_ ). Some of the character information from _Girl Genius_ has been heavily hinted at by the Foglios and has been accepted as at least fanon in some quarters but has not yet been explicitly confirmed in the comic. On some other points, I’ve either adopted or built on established fanon; still other points are entirely my own interpretation or are deliberately AU. The distance from Mechanicsburg to Sturmhalten, for example, I guesstimated based on the canon fact that Sturmhalten and the Refuge of Storms are “part of the same defensive ring,” the known distance from the Refuge of Storms to Mechanicsburg, and the assumption that the two fortresses are roughly equidistant from the town. But Castle Heterodyne’s level of control over the thorn hedge and the city walls is purely personal headcanon.
> 
> Chapters 1-7 were written _before_ SPN 10.23 aired, and I was well into Chapter 9 before the GG page for June 10, 2015, posted. My betas can back me up on that. (Of course, that was about the time RL started taking precedence, and I had hoped the Gen Big Bang would be running this summer, which it didn’t. _Oh, well!_ )
> 
> I am not affiliated with Studio Foglio or Kripke Enterprises in any way, nor is this story known to or approved by the good Professors or Jeremy Carver.
> 
> Many thanks to my fabulous betas, jennytork and immortal_jedi! (There’s one particular character in this story, in fact, that owes a great deal to some just-for-fun roleplay jennytork and I have done over the last several years.) Mega thanks, too, to hells_half_acre for the SPN timeline and clothing catalog and to the owners/maintainers of Supernatural Wiki and Girl Genius Wikia.

_“Idenifizieren Sie sich.”_

Dean Winchester frowned, looking around the Men of Letters’ garage for the source of the tinny electronic voice. Why was it speaking German?

_“Identifizieren Sie sich.”_

He pulled out his phone and texted his brother Sam to come help him search, then started listening more closely to see if he could determine which direction to turn.

_“Identifizieren Sie sich.”_

Sam jogged into the garage moments later. “What’s up?”

Dean held up a hand. “Shh.”

_“Identifizieren Sie sich.”_

Sam frowned and turned his head a little, and then both brothers spotted a brass... something in one corner. “’Ey, it’s a thingy,” he said in a tolerable impersonation of George Harrison. “A fiendish thingy.”

Dean snorted in amusement. “So it famous is. Let’s check it out.”

 _“Identifizieren Sie sich,”_ insisted the thingy.

On closer inspection, it turned out to be some kind of robot that stood about six feet tall; it had a trilobite logo embossed on its chest and one eye in the middle of its head, which opened when they walked up to it.

_“Identifizieren Sie sich.”_

“Uh... Winchester,” Sam tried.

A beam of blue light shot out of the eye and scanned the brothers and the cars in the garage. _“Funkprojekt Klang gefunden. Identifizieren Sie sich!”_

“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Dean stated. “We’re Men of Letters.”

_“Bezeichnung nicht erkannt. Identifizieren Sie sich!”_

“Sam and Dean Winchester. We’re hunters.”

_“Tätig... tätig... tätig....”_

Suddenly the whole bunker started shaking with what sounded like an echo of a distant but very loud and very ominous _DOOOOOOM!_

“What the hell—” Sam began.

But he didn’t get to finish the thought, because the robot... didn’t explode, exactly. However it broke down was orderly and purposeful, just too fast for Dean to follow. Within seconds, there was a portal where the robot had been, and scarcely had he registered that it was there before he and Sam were hurtled through it. They landed with a thud on the Impala’s hood... on a narrow cobblestone street lined with half-timbered buildings. Unseen crowds were roaring; the sky overhead was full of smoke and clouds and dirigibles; and the air reeked of gunpowder, ozone, and blood.

“Where the hell are we?” Dean asked quietly.

“HOY! Meester Gilgamesh!” cried a rough voice from above them, and Dean looked up to see an open window above a doorway that bore the words _Mamma Gkika’s_. The voice belonged to... to... well, some kind of humanoid monster with green skin, yellow hair, and pointed ears, teeth, and claws. But the creature, though it was pointing down at them, was turned to call to someone further inside the beer hall. “Ve gots company!”

Sam and Dean instantly drew their guns to keep the monster covered, which didn’t seem to worry the monster a whit. “I’ll cover him,” Sam murmured. “You watch for the other one.”

Dean nodded and watched for the second monster. But none appeared. Instead, the being that turned up a few moments later turned out to be... human, probably, a brown-haired young man in a long-sleeved white shirt and two vests, one blue with brass buttons and one brown with pockets and watches. It was kind of a Han Solo look, apart from the screwdrivers and stuff on the tac vest. And he was carrying... well, some kind of massive brass weapon, carried on the shoulder like a bazooka but about twice the diameter. Swearing, the Winchesters dove behind the Impala for cover as the weapon whined and the air began feeling like lightning was about to strike.

“Hay,” said the monster. “Mebbe dey iz friends. Dot dun look like a var clenk.”

“Good point,” said a second voice that probably belonged to the man. “In fact, I’ve never seen a clank like that before. YOU MEN!” he thundered. “Are you friend or foe?”

“How the hell should we know?!” Dean shot back. “We just got here!”

The weapon whined again, but the charge in the air dissipated. “Put your guns where I can see them.”

Sam put his Taurus on the hood, and Dean put his Colt on the roof. They wouldn’t normally comply so readily to someone who was clearly in league with monsters, but someone with a weapon that scary? _Hell_ , yeah.

“Put your hands on top of your heads and stand— _slowly_.”

They exchanged a look and did so.

The man gave them a frowning once-over. “Step out where I can see you.”

“Haven’t done this dance in a while,” Dean muttered as they obeyed.

Sam shushed him.

“Military training,” the man observed quietly to the monster while the Winchesters were still moving, “but not by any force I know. Armed, but not in uniform. Dangerous... but to whom?”

“Dey hef a new kinda clenk,” the monster returned at the same volume. “Mebbe dey iz schmot guys like hyu.”

“How did they arrive?”

“Dunno. Dey chust vas dere.”

The man continued frowning at the Winchesters a moment longer, then handed his weapon to the monster and pointed at Sam. “YOU!” he called. “Who are you?”

The brothers exchanged a startled look. Dean shrugged one shoulder, and Sam nodded and called back, “Sam Winchester. This is my brother, Dean.”

“Americans,” the man noted, and Dean finally placed the guy’s accent as vaguely Central or Eastern European. “Whom do you serve? Quickly!”

“Nobody,” Dean replied. “We’re hunters.”

“... Men of Letters,” Sam said at almost the same time Dean said _hunters_. “Who are you?”

“I am Gilgamesh Wulfenbach,” the man declared, as if he expected that to mean something to them.

At their blank looks, the monster suggested, “Mebbe de hat—”

Wulfenbach looked annoyed. “The hat won’t mean anything to an American. Besides which—”

“Look,” Sam interrupted. “We don’t even know where we are or why we’re here. We found some kind of robot in our garage. Somehow it got activated. There was a really loud sound—”

“The Doom Bell?”

“I... guess. Anyway, the robot formed a portal and brought us here, wherever... here is.”

“Mechanicsburg, Transylvania.”

The brothers looked at each other, looked back at Wulfenbach, and chorused, “ _Transylvania?!_ ”

Wulfenbach’s face finally cleared. “I’m sorry. We’re under attack from so many sides, I couldn’t be sure. That clank of yours.”

Dean glanced back at the Impala. “My car?”

“It has seats. Is it used for transport?”

Dean blinked. “Yeah. Most cars are.”

Wulfenbach shook his head. “I’ve _got_ to visit America someday. Look, I need to get out of this city quickly, to help the Lady Heterodyne with the defenses. May I borrow your—your car?”

“Hell, no.” Wulfenbach frowned again, but Dean continued, “Nobody drives my baby except me or Sam. We’ll take you.”

Wulfenbach actually smiled in relief. “Thank you. I’ll be right down.” He took his gun from the monster and turned to leave the window but turned back. “Oh. You can put your hands down now.”

Both brothers did so with a sigh and started back to the car to collect their guns as Wulfenbach left the window.

“Hay, keeds,” said the monster. “Hif hyu helps Meester Gilgamesh und Mees Agatha, ve iz on de same side. Hyu no gots to shoot Jägerkin.”

Dean frowned. “What the hell is—”

But Sam cut him off with a groan. “The robot must have mistranslated. _Hunter_ in German is _Jäger_. And if this bar is run by these Jäger things....”

“Jäger _monsters_ ,” called a female voice muffled by one of the plate glass windows at street level, where Dean belatedly discovered two more human faces—one a red-haired woman, one a bespectacled dark-skinned man who might be from India—and a whole host of multicolored Jäger faces peering out at them. “It is!” the redhead continued.

“I bet this wasn’t where we were supposed to go,” Sam concluded. “We were probably supposed to go directly to this Heterodyne lady, whoever she is.”

“Hoy!” exclaimed the Jäger at the upstairs window. “Hyu _iz_ a schmot guy! Bot hyu no gots Heterodyne schtories in Hamereeka?”

Sam blinked a couple of times and said, “Okay, I’m thinkin’ parallel universe.”

Dean scoffed. “Parallel, nothing. Dude, we are on beyond zebra here. Time passes at the same rate in every universe within the same multiverse—but this is _clearly_ not 2015.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Did you just—”

“Shut up, Sam.”

The upstairs Jäger chortled. “ _Anodder_ schmot guy!”

“YOU shut up!” Dean shouted back.

Fortunately, that was when the beer hall’s doors opened to reveal a slightly disgusted Wulfenbach with his weapon in one hand and what looked like a hot air balloon under his other arm. The crowd of grinning Jägers followed, led by a very large turquoise-haired female that was wearing some kind of Victorian-era uniform with heavy use of brass accents and decorative skulls on the belt. She was also carrying a giant double-bladed battleaxe with skulls embossed on the blades and _Dollink_ carved on the axe eye.

“Ve still gonna escort hyu to de gate,” she told Wulfenbach. “Dees clenk dun look like hit gots armor. Und dees boyz dun sound like dey know vere to go.”

Wulfenbach’s shoulders squared. “Messrs. Winchester, may I present Jäger General Gkika. Her people owe allegiance to the Heterodynes, but my father and I have been allied with them for the last fifteen years as well.” He paused, then added less regally, “Uh, could one of you get the door for me?”

As Sam got the back passenger door for Wulfenbach, Gkika came over to Dean. “Hyu gun drive dis clenk?”

“It’s a _car_ ,” Dean snarled.

She chuckled. “Hokay. Hyu follow us to de city gate. Ve gots to leef hyu dere und go beck to de Lady Heterodyne. Hyu gun hef to drive krezy fast und tek he-face-if action to get Meester Gil to de kestle.”

“Evasive, I can do. What’s your definition of crazy fast?”

“How fast ken hit go?”

“Top speed’s 120 miles an hour.”

Wulfenbach popped back out of the back seat, wide-eyed and grinning eagerly. “ _Really?!_ ”

Dean rounded on him. “Get back in the car!”

Gkika chuckled again, almost fondly, which was nearly as disconcerting as her sharp-toothed grin. “Ho, keed, hyu do chust fine. Veneffer hyu ready.”

Biting back a grumble, Dean ducked into the driver’s seat, and he and Sam shut their doors in unison before Dean started the engine and put the car in gear.

Gkika hefted her axe aloft and called, “Hokay, boyz!”

“VE HUNT!” cried the Jägers in response.

“And that’s not creepy at all,” Dean muttered and started following Gkika and her advance guard down the street.

“You’ll get used to them,” said their passenger.

“Look, no offense, Wulfenbach, but back home, me and my brother, we _hunt_ monsters.”

“But you’d never seen a Jäger before.” Wulfenbach leaned forward. “What monsters _do_ you hunt?”

“All of ’em. Demons, vampires, werewolves, pagan gods, wraiths, shapeshifters, shtrigas—”

“Hm.”

“Skinwalkers, wendigos—”

“Never heard of those.

“Rawheads, ghosts, djinn....”

“Revenants?”

“Yeah.”

“Geisterdamen?”

“... What?”

Sam sighed. “We’re not from this reality.”

Wulfenbach sat back, stunned, but then leaned forward again, with a touch of madness in his voice as he said, “Ohoho, you have _got_ to tell me—”

“HEY!” Dean interrupted. “Focus! We need to know what we can shoot!”

“Oh. Right.” Wulfenbach cleared his throat. “Well, most of the attackers in the city have probably been disabled by the Doom Bell, considering that it actually opened the interdimensional rift that brought you here. So we’re mainly looking at anything that’s still outside the city. And for better intelligence than that, we’re going to have to get back to Castle Wulfenbach.”

“How far is that?”

“By ground, only ten kilometers or so. Getting up to it is the problem.”

“Up?”

“It’s an airship.”

The only reason Dean didn’t slam on the brakes then and there was that half of the Jägers were still right behind him, practically on his bumper.

“Dean,” said Sam, “we only promised to get him out.”

“Um,” said Wulfenbach. “I... take it you don’t have airships?”

“Well, we have air _planes_. People travel by them, but they don’t live in them. But Dean hates to fly.”

Dean’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Planes _crash_ , Sammy.”

“We got to Scotland and back safely.”

“Yeah, but the time before that, and the time before _that_ —”

“You’re not gonna want to leave the car in the middle of a battlefield anyway, are you?”

“Exactly,” Wulfenbach chimed in, a little too eagerly. “So you fellows just get me to where I can catch a support ship back to Castle Wulfenbach, then follow the Jägers back to Agatha.”

“Not so fast, bud,” Dean growled. “Before we decide to trust you at all—”

“Hold that thought.” Wulfenbach rolled down his window, leaned halfway out with his gun shouldered, and shot... a bolt of _lightning_ at something in the sky, which exploded, much to the Jägers’ delight. “Sorry,” he said as he sat down again. “You were saying?”

“You are gonna have to bring us up to speed. What the hell is going on around here?”

“Long story.”

“ _Shorten it._ ”

Wulfenbach blew the air out of his cheeks. “Cutting out all of the science and most of the madness? Agatha is the last heir of the House of Heterodyne, which produced some of the maddest of mad scientists until her father and uncle decided to become heroes instead. Evidently she takes after her father in most ways. But then the Heterodyne Boys disappeared, and the ensuing war took such a toll that my father decided to end it himself. He’s never claimed a title greater than the baronage he was born to, but he massed an army and conquered most of Europa. The Wulfenbach Empire is hailed for ushering in the Pax Transylvania—but even I have to confess that Father is a tyrant. Or... was, anyway. He may have been killed by now. I won’t know until I get back to the castle.”

“Oh, so all this....”

“Some of it is to kill or capture Agatha. Some of it is revolt against the empire. There’s more I’ll have to explain later. But the result is going to be chaos and carnage unless I can take control of the empire long enough to save Agatha and put down the revolt. Once peace is restored and the political situation’s more stable, I can start introducing reforms and... and maybe... I mean, I hope....” Wulfenbach trailed off.

Sam looked back at him. “Marry Agatha?”

Dean could practically hear Wulfenbach blush.

Before the conversation could get any more awkward, however, the lead Jägers suddenly fanned out, clearing a path for the Impala through the menacing city gate toward the smoking battlefield, littered with bodies and downed robots and aircraft. It took Dean a moment to steel himself against flashbacks from Hell and from Purgatory.

“Hokay, boyz!” Gkika hollered over the battle din. “Hyu gots a clear shot now!”

“Look,” Wulfenbach said, “you can let me off here—”

Dean snorted. “We already stopped one Apocalypse. We can handle a damn war of succession.” And he floored the gas.

“I really can’t ask you to—yeeeEEEAAAHOOO!” Wulfenbach yowled as the V8 roared and the Impala apparently leapt past any speed he’d traveled before. “OH, this machine is MAGNIFICENT! You’ve got to let me—”

“ _NO! Nobody_ touches my baby but me!”

Sam frowned. “Dean, are you okay? You’re starting to sound like him.”

“I am not!” Yet despite his nerves singing with adrenaline and his usual levels of irritability being heightened by the situation, Dean did suddenly feel more in tune with the Impala than ever before, which... was saying something, really. And she seemed to be responding better than ever, handling almost at the speed of thought as Wulfenbach shouted directions and Sam shouted warnings. Even Wulfenbach’s occasional hanging out the window to fire his lightning gun barely registered, especially when the radio came on.

“DEAN!” Sam finally hollered, and Dean instinctively braked. Not until the car came to a complete stop did he register the rope ladder descending in front of the hood.

Wulfenbach was chuckling with that crazed edge again. “Heh... hehheh... ehehhehheh... that was amazing....”

“HEY!” Sam barked.

“Ah! Right!” Dean looked back to see Wulfenbach shaking his head to clear it. “This is where I get off. You two can go back into Mechanicsburg, find Agatha, and help her.”

“No. Dean’s going back to Mechanicsburg. I’m going with you.”

Dean frowned. “Hang on, Sam.”

“Dean. Trust me.” There was something in Sam’s tone that brooked no argument.

Dean hated to agree, but he couldn’t stomach the thought of flying, and this Agatha chick might really need help. And he couldn’t take all day to make up his mind, given the number of craters from artillery fire they’d dodged on the way out. “Fine,” he growled and turned to Wulfenbach. “Watch out for my little brother, huh?”

“Hey!” Sam objected.

Wulfenbach, on the other hand, met Dean’s eyes and gave him both a genuine smile and his hand. “You have my word.”

Dean nodded once and shook his hand.

Then Wulfenbach sighed and gathered up his gun and the balloon-looking thingy. He and Sam got out, and Wulfenbach settled the balloon-looking thingy on his head. Evidently that was the hat the Jägers had gone on about—Dean caught a brief glimpse of the front, where above the bill stood a wide ribbon reading _Gilgemesh Wulfenbach, Schmott Guy_. Sam managed to keep a straight face, as did Dean... until he turned around.

Then he laughed all the way back to Mechanicsburg.

* * *

Winchester didn’t say much as Gil rushed back to Castle Wulfenbach’s war room, using the idiotic Jäger hat to overcome objections. He mostly stayed two steps behind Gil as silent backup, letting his sturdy 6'4" frame do most of the talking for him. In fact, so quiet was Winchester that after introducing him to Father’s chiefs of staff, four-armed administrative genius Boris Dolokhov and pirate queen Capt. Bangladesh Dupree, and especially after discovering that the Wulfenbach army’s movements were being coordinated by Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus, Gil just about forgot that Winchester was there.

Until, that is, word came that Father had returned. Gil and Sturmvoraus took off at a run, but when Gil heard footsteps right behind them, he glanced back to see Winchester, gun in hand, following with a grim face. Yet said gun was pointed at the ground between Gil and Sturmvoraus’ feet, and said face was turned slightly as if Winchester were listening for pursuit.

Sturmvoraus noticed at about the same time Gil did and began, “What the devil are you—”

“Helping Agatha,” Winchester interrupted, looking Sturmvoraus in the eye. “Don’t know all the whys and wherefores, but all signs point to that being the reason my brother and I are here. And from the sound of it, the best way for me to help Agatha is by making sure you two don’t get caught.”

Sturmvoraus blinked and looked at Gil. “You sure he’s not a Tryggvassen?”

Gil snorted. “I haven’t felt the urge to chuck him out a window yet.”

Winchester huffed. “You’ve only known me an hour.”

That startled a laugh out of Sturmvoraus. “Friends beat you up often, do they?”

“Well, my brother’s best friend did once call me an abomination—but to be fair, he was getting over having drunk an entire liquor store at the time.”

“... How did that not kill him?”

“He’s an angel.”

Sturmvoraus gaped.

“Alternate reality,” Gil explained.

“... Oh,” said Sturmvoraus.

And there the matter stood as the three men fled toward Gil’s secret lab, joined en route by Bang and by the infamous Capt. Vole (the only Jäger ever to be disowned by his own kind for being too evil). Gil had to order Winchester not to shoot Vole, but otherwise, Winchester stuck to the back of the group “to watch our six”—whatever that meant. And he didn’t put his gun away until they were all safely through the electrical access hatch and the hatch itself was closed.

Gil was still trying to work out how to convince Winchester to go back to Mechanicsburg with Sturmvoraus when the aforementioned Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, showed up to try to take Gil to Father. That necessitated a quick song and dance to snag Sturmvoraus’ notebook, get both Sturmvoraus and Tryggvassen into the experimental dragonfly flying machine—chained together—because of Tryggvassen’s impeccable record of surviving impossible situations, and drop the flying machine out through the floor hatch. Not until he’d shoved Vole out after them and dodged Bang’s expression of displeasure over the loss of her new crush did Gil realize that Winchester was still with them.

And that was primarily because Winchester finally spoke up. “I’ve had monster girlfriends, Capt. Dupree,” he said. “My first kiss was a kitsune. After my college girlfriend was murdered, I had a three-night stand with a werewolf. And the girlfriend after that was a demon. None of those relationships ended well. You’re probably better off without Vole.”

Bang snarled.

Figuring out how to get Winchester back to Mechanicsburg would have to wait. Gil closed the hatch and started toward his chemical stores while flipping through Sturmvoraus’ encrypted notes in search of the formula that would protect them against the mind-controlling slaver wasps developed by Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne, also known as “The Other.” He didn’t know if he would have enough of all the ingredients to make three doses, but either way, preventing himself, Bang, and Winchester from getting wasped had to take priority. And hell, maybe Winchester would keep Bang occupied while Gil worked. In fact, judging from the sounds of a scuffle behind Gil, Winchester was probably doing just that.

But then Gil turned just in time to see Bang brain Winchester with a wrench. Yet Winchester didn’t fall. His hazel eyes flashed briefly with blue-white light, almost the color of the Dyne—and his entire demeanor changed.

“Enough of this,” he said, his voice soft but stern all at once. He straightened and spun, catching Bang’s right wrist with his left hand. Then he touched the first two fingers of his right hand to Bang’s forehead, just above her skull bindi.

And Bang sagged to the floor in an untidy heap.

Winchester turned back to a slack-jawed Gil, his posture oddly stiff. “Fear not, Gilgamesh,” he said, voice still soft and strange but without the stern edge. “She is merely asleep.”

“You’re not Winchester,” Gil breathed.

Whatever was possessing Winchester held up both hands, empty, palms out in a placating gesture. “I am here only for his protection. I will not hurt you.”

“Who are you?”

“A friend.”

“Not good enough.”

“I cannot tell you here. Finish the potion for yourself and Bangladesh—Sam can wait. I will explain myself once we are safely away.”

Even as unnerved as he felt, Gil realized he didn’t have any choice but to trust Winchester’s passenger for the moment. That also meant he didn’t have any choice but to leave with Winchester, not if he wanted to find out the truth. He certainly couldn’t let Winchester stay and possibly fall into his father’s hands, but neither could he let Winchester go anywhere near Agatha until he found out what was really going on. “Let me talk to Winchester,” he demanded.

“I cannot,” came the reply. “He is unconscious.”

“What about his brother? Is he possessed, too?”

“No. Dean is fully human. But we are wasting time.”

Gil drew a deep breath and let it out again. Then he turned to his long-time assistant, the little blue arthropod he’d built as a child and clothed in an orange coat and hat. “Zoing? Strap Bang down somewhere.”

Zoing obediently zipped over to Bang and dragged her to a table with restraints, then fastened the restraints around her wrists and ankles while Gil pulled on his lab coat and goggles and got to work. Winchester’s passenger walked over to the table to stand guard over Bang, but he didn’t say anything more until Bang came to, just about the time Gil finished the potion.

Then the entity put one hand on Bang’s shoulder. “Stay still,” he commanded.

“Gil,” Bang growled, “what the _hell_ —”

Gil sighed. “Bang, you’re going to have to trust me.”

“What are you talking about? What is that stuff you’ve been making?”

“It’s supposed to protect us against slaver wasps. I haven’t had time to study the theory, but knowing who Sturmvoraus is—”

“Wait, he’s the prince from _Sturmhalten?!_ That royal family—”

“—is neck deep in the plans of The Other. I know. That’s why I think this has a chance of working. And I have to risk it. There’s a possibility that my father has been wasped.”

“Sparks can’t—”

“They can now. The Knights of Jove figured out how to infect us.”

“And you expect me to _drink that?!_ ”

Gil accepted the beaker of finished potion from Zoing and went to the table, where Winchester’s passenger had moved his restraining hand to the center of Bang’s chest. “Look, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I need you free.” And with the help of the entity, Gil dosed her before she could squirm loose.

When she started glowing and jittering as the temporary side effects kicked in, he was very glad to have the entity there to restrain her. She broke free of the table restraints and tried to fight free of Winchester’s passenger, but whatever the entity was, he was superhumanly strong and kept her pinned to the table until the side effects passed and she slid into unconsciousness.

“Do you have another flying machine?” he asked Gil then.

“No,” Gil confessed. “I can make one, though.”

“Take the potion first. I will see to her.”

Still feeling disturbed but out of options, Gil chugged the potion, caught his breath, and let the side effect energy sweep him into a building frenzy. When it faded and he collapsed, panting but still conscious, he found himself looking up at a flying machine of a design he didn’t completely recognize but that ought at least to get him and Winchester to the ground in one piece.

Speaking of whom, Winchester crouched beside Gil with a look of concern. “Are you well, Gilgamesh?”

“Uh,” Gil nodded.

The passenger entity sighed a little and touched two fingers to Gil’s forehead, but instead of putting him to sleep, the touch sent a surge of bracing energy through him. Gil gasped as it passed and he realized that he felt completely well. Then the entity offered a hand, which Gil took, and helped Gil to his feet.

Gil glanced around then, saw that the table was empty, and turned back to the entity. “Where’s Bang?”

“I left her some meters down the passage from the entrance to this section and erased her memory of its location. Even if she wakes before we depart, she will not be able to lead your father to us.”

“Great. Thanks.” Then Gil noticed that Winchester’s face was kind of pale, making the moles beside his nose and on his chin stand out more prominently. “Are _you_ all right?”

“No worse than weary. I am... glad you have the means to fly without my aid.”

Hoping his worry didn’t show on his face, Gil bundled Winchester into the back seat of the flying machine, pocketed Sturmvoraus’ notes, waved goodbye to Zoing, climbed into the front seat, and opened the hatch. The engine took a bit of coaxing to start, but it did so long before they were in any danger. Then, rather than going straight to Mechanicsburg, Gil headed for one of the mountains close to which Castle Wulfenbach was hovering. He still needed to get the passenger’s story before he went anywhere near Agatha.

As the flying machine neared the mountain, Gil spotted the mouth of a cave that looked big enough to land in and headed for it. The entrance wasn’t quite wide enough and sheared off the wingtips—but that was okay. Surely somebody had seen him leaving; a bit of wreckage left outside might convince any pursuers that he had truly crashed.

Winchester’s passenger chuckled as the machine came to a standstill. “I think we need not mention this to Dean. He would never forgive you for crashing this plane with Sam aboard.”

Gil snorted. “Are you all right?”

The entity nodded. “Still weary, but that is not your doing.”

Gil hopped out onto what remained of one wing and helped the passenger entity maneuver Winchester’s body out of the back seat and down to the ground. Then he looked at the machine critically. “I suppose this ought to be in more pieces.”

Winchester’s passenger brought a fist down on the nose of the machine, which fell to bits with a clatter, forming a pile of smoldering scrap metal that would take some little time to search before anyone could discover that it concealed no bodies.

“Ah.”

“This also we should not mention to Dean,” said the entity with the barest sparkle of humor in his eyes.

There were some downed branches just outside the cave entrance, so Gil stepped out just long enough to grab one and light it from the fire still burning in the cockpit. “Right. This way.” And he headed toward the dark passage that led out of the back of the room.

“Do you know where we are?” the entity asked, following.

“... No, honestly. And I’m not planning to go far enough to get us lost, just far enough that the torchlight can’t be seen from the wreckage.”

“That is wise.”

The passage led around several bends, and Gil had just decided they’d gone far enough when another room opened up ahead of them—and something was moving in it. Yet Gil had barely stopped walking when Winchester’s hand came down on his shoulder.

“Stay,” whispered the entity. “I believe it is a friend.”

“Hoy!” called a familiar Jäger voice, and its owner came into the light—a pale-haired female dressed in purple and grey, with a wide-brimmed hat and a mask... Jenka, that was her name. She stopped short in surprise. “Meester Gil! Vot hyu doink here?”

“Ah, well, we’re escaping from my father. This is—”

But Jenka was already studying Winchester with a frown. “Hyu iz hurt bad. Hyu schmells... _burned_.”

Gil turned to Winchester in alarm, but the passenger entity only sighed. “Yes. I have not been able to heal Sam as well as I had hoped.”

“Heal?” Gil gasped. “I thought you said—”

The entity raised a hand. “Not from the ‘crash.’ These injuries happened weeks ago.”

Jenka hummed thoughtfully. “Ve better tek hyu to Mamma.”

“No,” Gil replied. “I don’t want him in Mechanicsburg until we’ve gotten the whole story out of him.”

“Ov cozz. Denn ve go someplace closer, yah? Diz vay.”

“So what are _you_ doing here?” Gil asked as Jenka led them further into the cavern. “I thought all the Jägers went back to town when the Doom Bell rang.”

“Zomebody gots to mek sure de old tonnels iz clear. Ve dun vants nobody schneakink in Miz Agatha’s beck door.”

“Ah, true, certainly.”

After a few more rooms, one of which was concealed by a door that seemed like the dead end of a passage, Jenka turned aside to another hidden door and ushered the others inside a room sparsely furnished with a table and chairs, a _Schrank_ with some wooden mugs adorned with the Heterodyne trilobite, and a barrel in one corner that probably held beer. She took the torch from Gil and set it in a wall bracket. The passenger entity, however, was more interested in the mugs.

“This symbol,” he said after a moment. “That was the only sign Sam saw on the robot that formed the portal. What does it mean?”

Jenka frowned. “Hyu dun know?”

“He’s... not from here,” Gil answered. “That’s the badge of the House of Heterodyne.”

The entity hummed and set down the mug. “Curious.”

“Here, come sit down.” Gil pulled out a chair.

The entity came over to the table and sank into the proffered chair with a sigh. Then he looked from Gil to Jenka and back again and sighed once more. “I... I believe I must trust someone. I do not know how long my secret will keep if I do not. And you will not judge me, I deem. Just... let me be the one to reveal all to Sam and Dean, please.”

“I can’t promise that,” Gil said. “Not until I’ve heard what you have to say.”

The entity took a deep breath. “My name is Gadreel. I am an angel of the Lord.” At Gil and Jenka’s shocked looks, he continued, “You... do not know the name?”

“My father is hardly a religious man.”

“Things may be different in this world in any case.” Gadreel took another deep breath. “In our world... my brother Lucifer deceived me, and I... allowed him entry to the Garden of Eden.”

Jenka gasped.

“My Father imprisoned me for thousands of years for that failure. I was not even aware when he left Heaven. I received only scraps of news now and then—until my brother Castiel raised Dean Winchester from Hell. Even after that, I heard little, though I was aware when first Castiel and then Anna were imprisoned for defying orders and aiding the Winchesters in their attempts to stop Lilith from starting the Apocalypse. But I did hear that Sam had freed Lucifer from Hell—and a year later, I heard that Sam had stopped the Apocalypse by returning both Lucifer and Michael to the Cage, at great cost to himself. His soul still bears the scars, even some wounds that remain open, and I... I have not been able to heal them.”

Gil frowned, though he wasn’t sure whether he was the more disturbed by the story about the Winchesters’ role in their Apocalypse or by Gadreel’s confessions of failure.

“But there was war in Heaven between Castiel and Raphael, for Raphael wanted Lucifer and Michael freed so that the Apocalypse could end as he believed it was foretold, and Castiel would not allow the Winchesters to be put at risk again. I... know little of what happened after that, but Castiel won, though it drove him mad. I have not risked probing Sam’s memories of that time. And then... a few months ago, the Winchesters inherited a bunker belonging to the Men of Letters, a society that gathered intelligence on the kinds of monsters Sam and Dean had been raised to hunt. At about the same time, they also received information on how to close the gates of Hell forever.”

Gil’s eyes widened. “And Sam tried it?”

Gadreel nodded. “He came very close to succeeding. But the final trial would have killed him, and after all they had been through, Dean could not let him die. Dean persuaded Sam to stop, but the trials left Sam’s internal organs badly burned. He was barely alive when Dean got him to a hospital. Yet somehow—and exactly how, I truly do not know—something happened just at the time Sam stopped, and all the angels were cast down from Heaven. Castiel himself was rendered human. So Dean called out to all of us to come to Sam’s aid. I was the only one who answered who did not want the Winchesters dead.”

“So... why....”

Gadreel shook his head sadly. “I was too badly injured by the fall.” To demonstrate, he stood, and the torchlight flared to show the shadow of tattered wings stretching out from Winchester’s shoulders. A few of the pinions even fell off as the wings unfolded.

“Gott’s leetle feesh in trousers,” Jenka breathed.

The light faded, and Gadreel sank back into the chair. “I had to lie to Dean about my name for fear he would not accept my help if Castiel warned him away from me. He believes I am Ezekiel, a good and honorable angel. But Ezekiel did not survive the fall. And I, as I have said, was too weakened, and Sam was too badly injured, for me to heal him from without. Our only hope was for me to attempt to heal Sam from the inside. But we both knew that after Lucifer, Sam would rather die than accept possession. So I... convinced Dean to help me talk Sam into agreeing to whatever Dean had planned to save his life.”

Gil frowned. “Wait, Sam doesn’t even know you’re in there?”

“It was to be temporary,” Gadreel pleaded, looking miserable. “I was to heal both Sam and myself and then return to my former vessel without Sam being any the wiser. But I could not do so quickly enough. Sam insisted on returning to hunting, and Castiel was murdered and needed to be raised, and then Dean asked me to resurrect another friend who had been killed. Every time I use my power in that way, I am weakened further, and it becomes harder and harder for me to regain my strength and return to the work of healing Sam. And... now... now we are _here_.”

After a moment’s silence, Jenka turned to Gil. “Hyu tink battledraught?”

Gil shook his head. “We don’t know how it would affect a human possessed by an angel. It might heal the burns, but that would be all.”

“No,” said Gadreel. “I still wish to keep my word to Dean and heal Sam myself. But I have no idea where to go afterward, especially if we cannot get home.”

“Could you form your own body?”

“I... suppose. It was forbidden in the past, but that must mean it would be possible. But I cannot do so until I heal both Sam and myself sufficiently. And even then, if Sam becomes aware of me, he can cast me out at any time.”

Suddenly an idea occurred to Gil. “Supposing I built you a clank. Could you possess that after you heal Sam?”

“A clank? Like—like Zoing?”

“No, Zoing’s a construct... er, a biological construction. A clank would be mechanical, and more humanoid.”

“Ah.”

“It wouldn’t exactly be a Van Rijn, but you’d be able to move independently. I could even give it wings if you like.”

“You... you would....” Hope dawned on Gadreel’s face. “We could try it. It probably would not work in our world, but here... here it might. But I cannot leave Sam like this.”

“I’ve got an idea for that, too. The waters of the Dyne have curious properties, including an unusual amount of energy. Agatha had to drink some to regain enough energy to stabilize herself, Sturmvoraus, and me after we used the Si Vales Valeo procedure to cure them both of Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation. I can’t be sure, but it _might_ be enough to heal you to the point that you can heal Sam.”

“Gilgamesh... how could I repay you?”

“Tell Sam and Dean the whole truth. And help me help Agatha.”

Gadreel suddenly huffed and smiled a little. “Perhaps the clank would be wise. That way, Dean will be less likely to kill me for having lied to him.”

“... Could he?”

“Oh, yes. I believe there are still angel swords in the arsenal in the Impala’s trunk.”

Gil’s mouth fell open, but Jenka chuckled. “Hy lyk dees guyz.”

Gil cleared his throat. “Right. Jenka, can we get into the castle from here?”

“No, but ve gots a tonnel to Mamma’s. Iz eezy peezy to get beck to de kestle from dere.”

“True, and I should check on Theo and Sleipnir while we’re there. They might even be willing to build the clank while I’m getting Gadreel and Sam stabilized.”

“Hokay. Hyu ready, Meester Gadreel?”

Gadreel stood. “I am ready.”

Jenka nodded and picked up the torch, and Gil and Gadreel followed her into the darkness of the caverns.


	2. Leap of Faith without a Net

It said something about the severity of Kevin Tran’s post-Branson hangover that when the bunker began to shake, he merely thought, _Oh, something blew up_ and rolled over and went back to sleep. It said something about his relationship with the Winchesters that he didn’t realize anything was amiss when Dean stopped answering his calls for help; he merely assumed the brothers had gone out without telling him. They almost never told him anything, since currently his primary job as prophet was translating a stone tablet that held all the information about angels God wanted humans to have in case of emergency. They cherished the possibly vain hope of finding some way to reverse the spell Metatron had used to cast down the angels. Kevin didn’t even think anything of the fact that when he finally managed to drag himself out of bed for more than the call of nature, the Winchesters had apparently been gone for several days. Sam hadn’t taken his laptop, but if it had been a major emergency, he might not have taken time to pack.

No, Kevin didn’t actually realize anything was wrong until the morning he passed the stairway to the garage and heard Dean’s ringtone... but Dean didn’t answer it.

Frowning, Kevin paused to listen. The ringtone stopped, then started again a moment later and played until it stopped. Yet there were no sounds of Dean working in the garage or otherwise being too occupied to answer. Then Sam’s ringtone went off, and again, there was no answer. Now truly worried, Kevin started up the stairs, only to have his own phone ring.

“Kevin!” Castiel barked when Kevin answered. “Where are Sam and Dean?”

“I-I dunno,” Kevin replied. “Sounds like they left their phones in the garage.”

“You’re sure they left?”

“N-no. I’ve been... sick, but I haven’t seen them for a few days. But I’m on my way to look in the garage. Is there something _I_ can do for you, Castiel?”

“No. I... really need Dean’s help if you can find him.”

Just then, Kevin reached the garage. “Well, the car’s gone,” he reported. “Maybe they left a note with the phones.”

“Perhaps.” But Castiel didn’t sound convinced.

Kevin checked the workbenches and came up empty. “Try calling Dean’s phone again,” he suggested. “That should help me find it.”

“All right.” Castiel hung up.

Kevin listened for Dean’s ringtone and followed it to a corner, where the phone lay on the floor next to Sam’s—which had a shattered screen, as if it had been dropped suddenly. Then he noticed the weird brass thingy lying in front of the phones. Swearing, he snapped a picture and sent it to Castiel.

Dean’s phone stopped ringing, and Kevin’s started a second later. “That’s all you found?” Castiel demanded when Kevin answered.

“Everything. I didn’t touch anything, either.”

Castiel muttered something in Enochian, but Kevin didn’t quite catch it. “All right,” he said then in English. “I’ll deal with the situation here and come to you as quickly as I can. Search that brass device _carefully_ to see what you can learn from it. Do not go near Crowley under any circumstances, is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

“And Kevin?”

“Yes, Castiel?”

Castiel paused before saying gently, “You may call me Cas.”

* * *

Sleipnir O’Hara and Theopholous DuMedd stared incredulously at Gil as one of the barmaids at Mamma Gkika’s set food in front of the three of them—and Gadreel, who was eating at Jenka’s insistence. (Well, actually, Jenka had threatened to rip Winchester’s throat out if Gadreel didn’t eat, and when Gadreel had countered that he’d only heal the wound, she’d shot back that he didn’t have the energy to spare and if he passed out and if Winchester woke up before he did, she’d tell Winchester everything. And that, of course, meant that Gil had to tell Sleipnir and Theo everything once Gadreel caved unhappily in the face of Jenka’s apparently correct surmise.)

“I’ve worked out a design for the clank,” Gil concluded, sketching said design quickly on a piece of paper he’d requested from Mamma. “But we’ll have to work fast if we’re going to have any chance of finishing before Agatha gets back to the castle with Dean.”

Jenka tapped his shoulder. “Hyu eatz, too. _Or elz._ ”

Gil gulped and started wolfing down his food, realizing belatedly that he hadn’t eaten since... well, since before the Si Vales Valeo, probably. And that was... how many days ago already? Not that it mattered, ultimately. After all, even if the castle could hold its own, it wouldn’t do for Gil to pass out in the middle of the battle.

Especially in front of Agatha.

Theo took off his pince-nez with a sigh and rubbed the spot between his eyebrows with his other hand. “Gil, if you’re counting on the castle for help—”

Gil shook his head and swallowed hurriedly. “No, the castle’s got bigger problems. We just need to get Gadreel back to the Great Movement Chamber before the castle seals up the shaft Agatha blasted to get down to it.”

“That’s just it. The castle _has_ got bigger problems. Sturmvoraus came by over an hour ago, looking for Agatha. The castle’s used up almost all of its reserve energy—the defenses won’t last much longer. And even with all the other sparks working on it, all the wretched thing will say is, ‘I require a spark.’”

“Blue _fire!_ All right, eat fast. We’ve got even less time than I thought.”

Theo nodded, put his pince-nez back on, and dug in.

“But Gil,” Sleipnir objected, “if Dean’s with Agatha, he may already be in the castle.”

“If he is, she’ll probably have put him straight to work. He’s a spark, too—maybe still breaking through, but it’s there all the same.”

Gadreel looked up in alarm. “ _What?!_ ”

Gil ignored him. “That’s not the point. The point is, if we don’t have a fully functioning castle... or, well, even if we do, the one thing my father will never expect is a fully functioning angel.”

“We do not yet even know—”

“Look, from what you told me about the properties of your ‘grace,’ the Dyne should charge your capacitors completely without harming Winchester. If all you lack are your wings, the clank will take care of that.”

“And if you are wrong?”

Sleipnir’s spoon clattered into her bowl. “What—but—Gil’s a _spark!_ ”

Theo frowned. “You don’t even know what that means, do you, Gadreel?”

Gadreel matched Theo’s frown. “You say that Dean is one. And Gilgamesh did build his flying machine very quickly, but I do not see....”

“The Spark is a gift—a... a kind of preternatural affinity for science and ability to build machines and conduct experiments and the like. Most country folk think it’s magic, but it’s not.”

“Nor is it a guarantee of infallibility.”

“But if the theory is sound enough, we can correct our mistakes quickly, before anyone gets hurt.”

“Well, not seriously hurt, anyway,” Gil amended.

Gadreel opened his mouth to object again, but suddenly his eyes widened. “Oh. The radio in the car. It came on of its own accord—and there was no tape in the tape deck.”

Now it was Gil’s turn to frown. “What does that mean?”

Gadreel turned to him with a slight look of panic. “Never mind. This gift—can it run in families?”

“Uh, yeah. Usually does.”

“And it conveys protections, like the protection against slaver wasps?”

Gil’s frown deepened. “What are you getting at?”

“Something stirs in Sam’s blood. Not—it is nothing I have sensed in him before.”

Swearing, Gil, Sleipnir, and Theo jumped up from the table and dragged Gadreel outside, where it was starting to rain, to Gil’s surprise. Sleipnir ran ahead and snagged a clank that was still in good enough working order to repair on the fly, and that was able to get them more speed, though not nearly as much as Dean’s car (and Gil was _so_ going to have to ask Dean for plans once this was over). Still, even though the clank got them into the castle and to the Great Movement Chamber in less time than it would have taken them to reach the castle causeway on foot, Gadreel was visibly fighting for control by the time they arrived at the headwaters of the Dyne.

“Work fast,” Gil told Theo as they eased Gadreel out of the clank.

“You know it,” Theo replied.

Sleipnir produced a cup from somewhere—Gil wasn’t inclined to ask questions at this point—and quickly filled it from the river near the spring, being careful not to touch the water herself. Gadreel took it from her with a nod of thanks, then sipped carefully... and gasped.

“Gadreel?” Gil prompted.

“It... it is working... oh, Father, forgive me,” Gadreel breathed and downed the rest.

A clatter arose somewhere toward the maintenance shed, but Gil couldn’t supervise. Theo had seen the sketch; he was a good enough engineer to make it work, perhaps even better than Gil himself could. Gil had to keep an eye on Gadreel and pray to a God he wasn’t sure existed that he hadn’t just killed Winchester—especially since there was another Winchester out there with a gun and a distinct aversion to losing his brother.

“Gilgamesh,” Gadreel panted after a moment, “forgive my doubt... and shield your eyes!”

Gil flung himself down and covered his head with his arms, screwing his eyes shut even though he’d pressed his face to the floor. And still he was aware of a blinding light erupting along with a high-pitched whine that made the floor shake and could have shattered glass had it been sustained for more than a second. The light lasted close to a minute before the room was plunged back into its usual level of darkness, lit only by the glowing water from the spring. And Gil lifted his head to see Winchester flat on his back and gasping for breath.

“Gadreel?!” he cried.

“Done,” Gadreel panted. “It is done. Clank... where is....”

“Two minutes!” Theo called, and the clatter burst out again at an even more frenzied pitch.

“We are healed,” Gadreel told Gil. “Only stunned. My... my true form... was required... to absorb... but Sam’s... Sam’s gift... the Spark... it grows stronger... his consciousness... is suppressed, but he will... become aware of me soon....”

“Just hold on,” Gil ordered, putting a hand on Gadreel’s chest. “Theo knows what he’s doing. Surely you can hold out another ninety seconds.”

Gadreel nodded and worked at regaining control of both his breathing and his heart rate, which Gil felt slowing under his hand.

Once it seemed like Gadreel had mostly caught his breath, Gil asked, “Will you need the clank brought over, or—”

“No. It will not be necessary to move either it or us. But it will be bright again.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“DONE!” Theo and Sleipnir chorused a few moments later.

“EYES!” Gil called back and shielded his own again a split second before Gadreel let go. There was no whine this time, but somehow Gil could sense the angel’s energy flowing overhead for a brief moment before the clank creaked in the way that meant its consciousness had come online.

Gil had just picked himself up when Winchester sat bolt upright with a gasp, blew the air out of his cheeks, and put a hand to his head.

“You all right, Winchester?” Gil asked.

Winchester nodded. “Yeah, head rush. It’ll clear in a minute. How long was I out?”

“A few hours.”

“Where are we?”

“Castle Heterodyne. I couldn’t risk Dupree leading my father to us, so I dosed her and myself and got us back here as fast as I safely could. I—”

“SAM!” came a bellow from above, followed by the rattle of the lift lowering. “Wulfenbach, if you’ve done anything to my brother, I will _end you!_ ”

“I’m _fine_ , Dean!” Winchester hollered back as he stood. “Haven’t felt this good since college!”

“I’ll believe that when I see it, Sammy!”

“College,” Sleipnir echoed as the lift reached the floor with a clang. “Is that like uni?”

Winchester cleared his throat in surprise. “Uh, yeah. I went to Stanford University—it... may not exist here yet.”

“And what did you study?”

“Law. I was pre-law.”

Before anyone could ask any more questions, Gil found himself confronted with the need to switch to first names for the Winchesters, as Dean ran up and started checking Sam over. “Sam, what the hell happened?”

Sam batted Dean’s hands away. “Dude, I told you, I’m _fine_. Got into a fight with a pirate queen who works for the baron, and she gave me a headache, but it’s wearing off.”

“Are you _sure?_ ”

 _“Yes,”_ answered an electronic voice. _“He is whole, Dean.”_

Dean frowned and looked around, and then both he and Sam stared at the seven-foot humanoid clank with graceful wings of canvas and brass—not as graceful as the Van Rijn body that had originally housed Otilia, Muse of Protection, but this one had been built to house a more masculine consciousness anyway.

“What the—” both brothers began.

Then Dean’s eyes widened further. “ _Zeke?!_ ”

Sam did a double-take.

The clank gave a brief squeak of feedback before a more human-sounding voice said, “Ah, there.” It was a male voice, but not Sam’s—perhaps a bit deeper, accented differently, but still with the quiet power and somewhat stilted diction Gil had heard before. “We were not made to be housed in mechanical vessels, but this will serve for now. Sam, Dean, I owe you both an apology. I have kept my word... but I have not told the whole truth.”

“Wait,” said Sam. “You’re an angel. One of _our_ angels.”

“Yes. I was brought here along with you. Do not be angry with Dean—it was my idea to heal you from within.”

“ _WHAT?!_ ”

“Sammy, there was no other way,” Dean stated.

“What—you—”

“You agreed to live. You agreed to let me save you.”

“But I didn’t agree to _that!_ ” Sam exploded, pointing at Gadreel.

“Cas said Zeke was okay!”

“He was,” Gadreel interrupted. “But I am not Ezekiel.”

Dean turned to Gadreel, eyes wide in shock. “You—you’re—”

“I feared you would not accept my help if you knew my true name. The stories about me, they are not true.”

“So what is your true name?”

“Gadreel.”

Dean looked at Sam, who shook his head.

“Castiel would have told you. I was the guard at Eden’s gate when Lucifer... he _deceived_ me,” Gadreel pleaded, falling to one knee. “He swore he came to give Adam and Eve gifts. Had I known his true intent, I would never have let him pass!”

Sam swallowed hard. “You let Lucifer into Eden? The day that....”

“Yes. Believe me, I have paid for that crime a thousand times over. And I have kept my word. Sam, you are healed—from the trials, from Hell, every wound that I could find that did not stem from your own memories. Please... can you ever forgive me?”

Dean turned away, running a hand over his mouth. Then in one swift motion, he turned back, pulled his gun, and shot Gadreel right between his mechanical eyes. Theo, Sleipnir, and Gil all yelped, but apart from the bullet hole, Gadreel didn’t seem to be damaged.

“Don’t you ever lie to me again,” Dean growled, lowering his gun.

The metal around the bullet hole crinkled back into place, leaving only a dent and some slight scarring. Gil suspected Gadreel left that much damage deliberately. But all the angel said was a very quiet, “Thank you, Dean.”

The ensuing silence, tense as it was, allowed Gil to finally register the castle’s voice repeating _“I require... a... spark....”_ But only a few seconds passed before even that was interrupted by a loud boom from somewhere outside.

And seconds after that, a head appeared over the edge of the shaft—pale skin, long maroon hair, pince-nez... Sturmvoraus. “What the— _Wulfenbach!_ Why are you building clanks at a time like this? Get up here! Your father’s sent a battering ram!”

Gil swore, and humans and angel followed him to the lift. “Gadreel said you have an arsenal in your car,” he said to Dean as they ran.

“Yeah,” Dean replied. “What do you need?”

“This ram—it’s like a giant sheep. Shielded against most anything the castle could throw at it if the defenses were online, from electricity to conventional ammunition.”

“Any weaknesses?”

“The eyes, but it keeps its head down unless the rider pulls it back.”

As everyone piled onto the lift platform, Dean shot a questioning look at Sam, who still looked sour and replied, “Don’t think we’re not going to talk about this.”

Dean shook his head once and started the lift. “Dude, you can beat me up as many times as you want tomorrow, but let’s make sure we both live that long.”

Sam huffed. “Fine. Molotov?”

“Now you’re talkin’. Need a glass bottle,” Dean told Gil, “about two-thirds full of kerosene mixed with motor oil, and a strip of fabric that’ll burn easily.”

“What good will that do?” Gil asked as the lift came to a stop.

“Trust us,” the brothers chorused.

Gil sighed and started shouting orders as the group disembarked, then followed Sam and Dean out of the castle to the city square where the car was parked. Dean pulled a key out of his pocket and opened a spacious compartment at the back—for holding luggage, perhaps?—and lifted what appeared to be the bottom, which Sam held open while Dean retrieved a large case from a truly impressive stash of weaponry. Gil didn’t have time to register everything in that compartment before Sam closed it again, and Dean laid the case on the false bottom and opened it to reveal some kind of gun. Then Dean slid off one piece, which was probably a magazine, and checked its ammunition before retrieving another from the case.

“Incendiary rounds?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Dean replied and slammed the new magazine into place.

“How do we even—”

“Don’t ask.” Dean slung the gun’s strap over his shoulder, then shut the case and the luggage compartment.

One of the castle’s former prisoners ran up just then with the requested bottle of kerosene and a cleaning rag. “Will these do, Herr Wulfenbach?”

“Perfect,” said Sam, taking them and stuffing one end of the rag into the bottle. “Where’s Agatha?”

“This way,” said Sturmvoraus, who had followed them. As they in turn followed him, he looked at Gil. “So you decided to save yourself after all?”

“I decided to save _Winchester_ ,” Gil snapped. “What have I missed?”

“Your father had the Vespiary Squad ship shot down. I saved as many of the wasp eaters and notes as I could, but Dr. Bren is dead.”

Gil swore bitterly. “That must be Lucrezia’s influence.”

“Probably the copy in Anevka, unless Zola managed to survive the attack on the hospital.”

“Not likely, but not impossible.”

“The castle, as you no doubt heard, is dying. Agatha had an idea, but then the ram showed up.”

“Father’s probing the defenses.”

“And he’s about to find their limits. If Agatha can’t get the castle up and running... we’ve got your lightning stick, but....”

“That won’t be much good for much longer. Father will be shielding everything soon, if he hasn’t already.”

“So that’s it. We’re done.”

“Not quite,” said Dean. “We got an ace in the hole and one more up our sleeve.”

“At least,” Sam agreed.

Sturmvoraus looked dubious, and Gil himself had his doubts about the Winchesters’ ability to take down the ram with conventional weaponry. Still, whatever they had planned, Father wouldn’t be expecting it. And he also wouldn’t be expecting Gadreel, who was manually bracing the gate when the team arrived. The ram had just struck again and was on its way back to take another run, so the men ran up to join Agatha, Jäger General Zog, and other defenders on the wall above the gate. Gil started to introduce Sam to Agatha, but neither brother was paying attention; Sam was lighting the dry end of the rag, and Dean was setting the bipod of his gun on the rampart.

“What are they doing?” Agatha asked.

“Er, well,” Gil hedged, not being entirely sure himself.

Then the ram wheeled around to charge the gate again, and Dean put his eye to what Gil belatedly realized was a sighting scope and followed the ram’s progress toward the gate. But before the ram could strike, Sam hurled the bottle with the flaming rag down toward it, and it shattered in a fireball squarely on the back of the ram’s head. The rider startled back, jerking the ram’s head upward—and Dean fired twice in rapid succession, hitting the ram once in each eye. The vitreous humors caught fire, and the ram ran off bellowing in a blind panic as it tried in vain to escape the flames consuming it from without and within. The Jägers roared in approval.

“What was that?” Agatha demanded of Sam. “What did you throw?”

“It’s called a Molotov cocktail,” Sam replied. “They’re mostly used in riots where we come from.”

Gil cleared his throat. “Agatha, may I present Sam Winchester, Dean’s brother. Sam, this is the Lady Heterodyne.”

Sam nodded in acknowledgment. “Ma’am.”

“Mr. Winchester,” Agatha returned.

“We may have stopped the ram,” said Sturmvoraus, brushing his bangs out of his face and pushing his pince-nez up his nose, “but the baron surely knows those were conventional weapons, even if they’re ones he’s never seen before. Whatever he sends next won’t be the sort of thing we can stop with a rifle or a firebomb.”

The Winchesters looked at each other and chorused, “Dragons.”

And sure enough, a red dragon with a purely decorative breastplate bearing the Wulfenbach badge strode up the road, accompanied by a squire on a donkey, and demanded that Mechanicsburg surrender Agatha or be destroyed. Franz Scortchmaw, the Great Dragon of Mechanicsburg, leapt over the walls to fight the Wulfenbach dragon, but that didn’t go very well until Agatha zapped Franz with the lightning stick to recharge his energy. Then the rain began to fall in earnest, and Agatha had just given orders to power up the lightning generators Gil had originally used to power the lightning stick so that she could recharge the castle when a batch of giant clanks claiming to be Knights of Jove turned up to “rescue” Agatha—and Father pulled back the illusion he’d laid over the battlefield, revealing an overwhelming force surrounding the city, far greater than the assault ought to need to crush either the Knights of Jove or the city or both. Gen. Zog noted as much.

Gil’s head suddenly felt light as the enormity of the situation dawned on him. “Me. He wanted to overawe _me_. If he’d caught me... he’d have tried to use all this as leverage.”

Agatha turned and put a hand on his arm. “Leverage for what?”

“I-I don’t know. But he knows I’d do anything to protect you.” He turned and put both hands on her shoulders. “You’ve got to get the castle recharged _now_.”

She nodded once, grim-faced. But before she could say anything, a Dreen floated up and demanded that Agatha surrender. Dean tried to shoot it, to no avail. Gen. Zog and Sturmvoraus scooped Agatha up to get her to safety—

—and a burst of white light shot from behind them, vaporizing the Dreen.

“Vot der _hay?!_ ” gasped Gen. Zog, setting Agatha back on her feet, as Gadreel settled at the top of the stairs.

“Fear not,” said Gadreel. “I am Gadreel. I am an angel of the Lord.”

Dean turned to him. “You got your wings back, dude?”

“I can at least use the wings of this clank.”

Gil looked at Agatha. “Where’s the lightning stick?”

She held it up and looked up at Gadreel. “I need to get someplace high enough that I can hit the castle with a lightning bolt.”

Gadreel looked at the castle and back at her. “Would the roof suffice?”

“Um. Sure.”

Gadreel turned to Gil. “I shall keep her safe.” And with that, he swept Agatha into his arms, unfurled the clank’s wings, and shot into the air as if he had rocket boosters on his heels.

“Hmph,” said a deep voice from outside the walls. “Show-off.” Everyone turned to see one of the Knights of Jove clanks opening to reveal the driver, a muscle-bound guy in a white suit with a gold waistcoat and sash, a circlet bearing a lightning bolt... and maroon hair. “I didn’t even have time—”

“Tweedle, you idiot, get out of there!” Sturmvoraus hollered.

“Ah,” said Gil. “One of yours?”

Sturmvoraus snorted. “Wish he weren’t. My cousin Martellus von Blitzengaard.”

Von Blitzengaard huffed. “Give it up, Tarvek. You’ve been replaced. _I_ am the newly-ascended Storm King.”

“Over my dead body,” Dean snarled, aiming his rifle at the pretender.

“Stand down, Winchester,” Gil ordered.

“Shut up and jump!” Sturmvoraus called.

Von Blitzengaard was about to object when the whine of an incoming shell prompted him to obey just before his clank exploded. “You’re supposed to be dead!” he groused at Sturmvoraus then.

“Oh, I’ll just _bet_ I am,” Sturmvoraus snarled back.

“I was told you were dead when I was called here!”

“Called? By whom?”

The answer appeared at the bottom of the stairs, where the abbess of the Red Cathedral sat waiting astride a destrier in front of a battalion of clanks she called Bloodstone Paladins, which she declared were sworn to the service of the Storm King. Von Blitzengaard leapt onto the horse she had waiting for him and led the Paladins out the battered gate.

As the Paladins passed, though, the abbess dismounted and turned on Gil, holding him at swordpoint. “Do not commit the folly of believing that girl a true Heterodyne, young Wulfenbach,” she said quietly. “And do not think you have any hope of aiding her against your father. She is nothing but a pawn to aid the ascension of the Storm King—and you are now my hostage to be used against both her and the empire if it becomes necessary.”

Sam shot her.

* * *

Humans were so fragile. That was all Gadreel could think as he soared toward the castle roof cradling young Agatha in his arms like a child, equally afraid of crushing her and of dropping her. This metal vessel was too slow, too different from either of the men who had been his vessels before, and he was still unsure of his control over it. Still, he had shielded himself and her and was flying fast enough that the Wulfenbach forces had not yet been able to target them adequately.

She looked up at him suspiciously. “Now, when you say you’ll ‘keep me safe....’”

“I will protect you while you work,” he replied. “What did you think I meant?”

“Well, it’s just that when people who aren’t Heterodyne vassals say they’ll keep me safe, they usually mean either taking me to the baron or getting me away from the fighting. And I _can’t_ leave, not now.”

“No, no. The situation is not yet so dire as that.”

She brightened a little. “You think so?”

“Your friends still live. From what little I have seen, they are clever and capable, as are you. And now you also have the Winchesters—and me.”

“Yes, what _are_ you? Are you a clank that’s called an angel?”

“I am an angel inhabiting a clank. My true form is many times larger even than this vessel. But I cannot show it to you,” he added before she could ask. “To do so would burn out your eyes, as my true voice could leave you deaf.”

“Oh.” Then the gleam he had come to associate with the Spark crept into her eye. “If that’s so, then....”

“If necessary, I shall attack the baron’s forces that way. But I can do much without revealing myself to such an extent.”

She grinned. “I like you.”

He chuckled sadly, since this face could not smile. “You are in the minority, I fear.”

“Oh? What’s wrong?”

“Many years ago, I... disgraced myself. My brothers have never forgiven me.”

She blinked in surprise a couple of times, then huffed and smiled again. “Welcome to Mechanicsburg.”

He really wished he could smile at that, but perhaps she could feel the way the metal warmed.

“So you know the Winchesters?”

“Yes. It is too long a tale to tell here and now, but I was brought here with them. Gilgamesh designed this clank for me, and Theo and Sleipnir built it.”

“And why were you brought here?”

“We do not know for certain, but the clank that formed the portal bore a Heterodyne badge. We assume that we are to aid you.”

“Are they good men?”

That was a loaded question, and he could hardly answer it adequately. “They fight evil,” he said cautiously. “They are trustworthy and loyal, and they are on your side. More than that, you will have to judge for yourself. But for my own part, I am their friend.”

“They’re... they won’t be... well, _interested_ in me, will they?” That question was somewhat shy. “They are very handsome, but I think they’re much older than I am.”

That clarified what she was really asking. “Their souls are even older than their calendar age. But by that measure, they are both over the age of thirty and have loved and lost more than once. They may look on you as a cousin or sister, possibly even a daughter, but no more than that. Besides,” he added, hoping his amusement showed in his voice, “they know you are spoken for.”

She blushed and demanded, “Keep flying!”

In truth, the remaining distance to the castle was short, and they landed on the roof less than a minute later. He set her on her feet as gently as he was able, then drew his wings forward as a rain shield and located a light in the clank that he could turn on to illuminate the lightning collectors she declared needed quick repair. Not being bound to the clank as to a human vessel, however, he could leave the clank in place and, veiling himself from mortal sight, step out to defend against the assault that was sure to come when the baron’s forces caught up with them.

He was not expecting to find a clear view of something hovering over Agatha’s back. A ghost— _no._ Not a simple ghost. This female spirit had been half demonic even in life, and not by heritage. This must be the Lucrezia of whom Gilgamesh had spoken and called “The Other.” She was possessing Agatha, fighting for control, trying to pull Agatha away from her task, but not succeeding.

Gadreel raised his sword and was about to sunder the connection between the two when the baron’s forces finally arrived, and then he had a battle of his own to wage. By the time it was over, Agatha was standing up and needed the clank out of her way. So he returned to retract the clank’s wings and suddenly became aware that she had run wires to the clank’s ankles.

“I don’t think you’ll be damaged,” she was saying, “but if you do get melted, I’ll have Theo build you a new clank to live in.”

“Sorry, what?”

But Agatha didn’t answer, just raised the lightning stick and fired it into the air, drawing repeated lightning strikes to the collectors... and occasionally to Gadreel’s clank. He didn’t mind, exactly, but he did wonder about the wisdom of her exposing herself to this much electricity. Not that he could voice those thoughts at present, with the electronic voice box shorting out from the power surge, or that she would have heeded if he had. And when the lightning strikes had finished, she screamed something toward the battlefield—he didn’t catch it, as he was repairing the clank as best he could from within—whereupon the castle’s artificial intelligence began speaking to her again, repaired itself, and powered up the town’s automated defenses, which drove the baron’s forces out handily once Gadreel helped her inside to find a control panel and make calibrations.

And after that, the aerial defense drones called the Torchmen came to bear Agatha triumphantly back to her friends, leaving Gadreel to process what he’d just seen. Some of her little helper clanks swarmed over him, repairing what he had not had the skill to fix. But his attention was on the battlefield as he wondered whether he and the Winchesters had done enough or whether there was yet more for them to do, whether they would even be able to return home... or whether they would want to.

Thus it was that he was still staring out at Castle Wulfenbach ten minutes later when something fell from it and headed toward Mechanicsburg. He had his answer—and knew what he had to do.


	3. The Bunker and the Cathedral

Four days crawled by after Kevin’s discovery in the garage—and he was sure of that only because Cas called at the end of each day to check on him. After his first day’s research on the brass thing, however, Cas recommended that he go back to working on the angel tablet translation. He did so but completely ran aground on the section regarding the spell Metatron had used. It wasn’t just difficult, as the earlier sections and the demon tablet had been; it was outright impossible. He’d somehow managed to get it transliterated into Proto-Elamite, but that language was so long dead, even the Men of Letters didn’t have an actual English dictionary. And he had the nagging suspicion that Metatron had encrypted this section deliberately.

Crowley was available, of course. He made sure to call out every time Kevin passed the storeroom that hid the dungeon. And granted, Kevin was worried about Sam and Dean, not to mention lonely and not a little put out at still being stuck in this situation after all this time. But Cas had warned him not to go near the captive King of Hell, and though it took every ounce of self-discipline Kevin had, he did not give in to the temptation even to go into the storeroom. He still remembered the last time he’d gone in to see Crowley alone and somehow let himself be goaded into beating the demon savagely. He wasn’t proud of that, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Finally, however, Cas called to let Kevin know when and where to meet his bus from somewhere in Idaho. The former angel’s gravelly voice sounded even rougher and more tired than usual, so Kevin wasn’t terribly surprised to find Cas at the bus station with his arm in a sling and circles under his blue eyes that were almost as dark as his disheveled hair. It was a good thing Cas hadn’t tried to drive, if he even knew how. Kevin did, and the car Dean had ‘appropriated’ for him before sending him to the bunker the first time was still in good working order, so getting to the bus station hadn’t been a problem, even though it was over ninety miles from Lebanon. (Putting the bunker near the geographic center of the US might have been good security on the Men of Letters’ part, but it was terribly inconvenient to have nothing nearby but miles and miles of Kansas and Nebraska.)

“I’m all right,” was the first thing Cas said when Kevin walked up to him.

Kevin huffed. “You _are_ a Winchester. What happened?”

“A healer angel, a Rit Zien—his name was Ephraim. He... didn’t fully understand human suffering, so he was killing those whom he deemed in need of release from their pain.” Cas flexed his splinted hand. “He nearly got the better of me.”

Kevin sighed. “C’mon. I’ll fill you in on the way. You got any bags?”

“No.” Cas stood wearily and followed Kevin to the car. “Still no sign of Sam and Dean?” he asked as they got in.

“None. I’ve got one long-shot match on the sigil on that brass thing, but no more than that. And I’ve hit the wall on the angel tablet, too.”

Cas sighed heavily and didn’t say anything. He was asleep before they reached the city limits.

There wasn’t a good place to stop for food on the way back to the bunker, so Kevin cooked while Cas worked on the Proto-Elamite text. Just about the time the soup finished heating through, however, Cas threw down his pencil in frustration.

“What?” Kevin asked.

“The spell. It can’t be reversed. The text speaks of a secret portal that would allow the angels to return to Heaven through the back door, as it were, but it gives no location. Metatron must be the only one who knows where it is. That....” Cas hesitated, as if looking for the right phrase, before finally settling on a very nasty Enochian name.

“So what do we do?”

“First we eat. Then we find Sam and Dean.”

After they ate, Kevin led Cas to the library, where his laptop was set up beside Sam’s. “Like I said,” he began, “this is a pretty long shot. The brass thing seems to be completely inert now—I mean, it’s not like I have any kind of scanner to check for energy traces, but it hasn’t done anything even when I’ve picked it up. The only clue was the emblem on one of the pieces.”

“Yes, the trilobite.”

“I did a reverse Google image search, and _this_ is the closest match I could find.” Kevin pulled up the tab for the _Girl Genius_ webcomic, open to a page that gave a clear view of the protagonist’s trilobite locket. As Cas frowned at it, Kevin continued, “I mean, I could be wrong, but—”

Cas shook his head. “No. You’re not wrong. It is the same design.” He started browsing through the comic’s archive.

“That doesn’t help us, though, does it? It sounds pretty silly to say they got sucked into a webcomic. But on the other hand... we are talking about Sam and Dean.”

“Were Gabriel alive, it might have been his idea of a joke. Then again, we can’t be sure of anything where Gabriel’s concerned.”

Kevin gave Cas an odd look, but Cas just kept skimming through the archive.

But then he stopped, and his frown deepened. “Something’s wrong with this website. It shows that there are many pages after this one, but they won’t load.”

“Maybe it’s down.”

“No, no, look, I can go back just fine. Only here”—Cas scrolled to the end of a page from late 2011, over panels of people talking about something called the Doom Bell to one with a grey gargoyle-ish figure with a weapon or hammer or something pulled back to strike, grinning evilly and thinking _I **love** this part_—“do the controls stop working, and only for going forward.” He demonstrated with the drop-down chapter menu, which showed another three books’ worth of material and part of a fourth but wouldn’t respond when he clicked on any of those chapters.

Kevin gave him a sidelong look. “You’re not seriously saying there’s a universe out there where this comic is real.”

“There’s at least one universe where our lives are a television show. I once arranged for Sam and Dean to be sent there to distract Raphael.”

Kevin blinked several times. “Wow. Okay. Wow.” He rubbed at his forehead to try to stave off the headache he felt coming on, but as he did so, a fragment of memory came back. “Wait. Doom Bell. There was a really loud noise—like, the walls shook. I thought something had blown up. But... now that I think about it... it was more sustained, like... like a huge, deep bell.”

Now it was Cas’ turn to give an odd look. “There’s quite a difference—”

“I know that. Look, I told you I’d been sick. I was pretty messed up at the time. And it’s not like it was close. I thought it was, like, on the other side of the bunker or something.”

Cas sighed and tried again to navigate forward. When he continued to fail, he sighed again. “It’s our only lead. I suppose we should start from the beginning to learn everything we can.” And he hit the button to go back to the first page.

“Cas, that was the end of Volume _Eleven_. It’ll probably take us several days to get through the whole series. And it’s nearly midnight. Let’s do this in the morning.”

Cas started to object but was interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn. “Perhaps we should. I’m... I’m sorry, Kevin. I’m still not used to being human.”

Kevin couldn’t help smiling a little at that. “That’s okay. C’mon. Dean’s probably got some pajamas you can borrow.”

Cas carefully shut the laptop, and Kevin led him to Dean’s bedroom before going to change for bed himself. When he came back a few minutes later, however, he found Cas, still dressed, sacked out on Dean’s bed. He shook his head sadly and left Cas there.

Morning found Cas taking another crack at the tablet translation, though he wouldn’t tell Kevin up front what he’d discovered. Instead, after breakfast, he insisted on trying to find just a synopsis of _Girl Genius_. “The Winchesters have already been gone for two weeks,” he hedged when Kevin questioned the need for haste. “The city in the comic appeared to be under attack. They may need our help.”

Kevin threw up his hands. “Okay, fine. Suit yourself. I don’t know what good we’ll do two weeks later, but—”

“Time may pass differently there than here. At least, they were in the television universe for three days but came back the same night they left, not even an hour after their disappearance. And it looked like full conversations sometimes took days, if not weeks, to appear on the website, so for Sam and Dean, only a few hours may have passed.”

Feeling another headache coming on, Kevin sighed and followed Cas to the library. He had to be the one to run the search, though, since Cas hadn’t yet mastered how to type one-handed. Wikipedia came to the rescue... but just about at the point describing the siege of Mechanicsburg, the page suddenly wouldn’t continue scrolling down.

“Hrm,” said Kevin. “Guess that means it _isn’t_ just one website that’s glitching.”

“Kevin,” Cas asked gravely, still staring at the screen, “what ties do you still have here that would prevent your permanent disappearance?”

“... Uh, well, Crowley’s still chained up in the dungeon, and Dean would probably want us to leave the key with someone. Why?”

“We need to follow the Winchesters.”

“But it sounds like Agatha—”

“No. Not for their sake.” Cas finally looked Kevin in the eye. “The portal to Heaven is closed, and Metatron cannot simply open it at will. The angel tablet confers great power upon any angel who holds it. To open the portal, an angel must possess the tablet—and kill the prophet who bears it.”

Kevin gulped. “B-but as long as I’m here....”

Cas shook his head. “Metatron is as devious as Crowley is. And he knows you. Worse, because he was the Scribe and you are the prophet, he has a connection to you through the tablets. The only way we can be absolutely certain that he cannot reach you is to take both you and the tablets to another world.”

Not for the first time, Kevin wished he’d never heard of Sam and Dean. Yet he couldn’t fault the logic. “So, uh... how do we....”

“First we tie up our last loose ends, starting with Crowley. Killing him would be the most expedient option, but that would leave Abaddon free to rule Hell her own way, which is even less acceptable.”

“But we can’t just let him go. So what do we do with him?”

Cas smiled a little. “Have you ever been to confession?”

An hour later, both fully shriven, prophet and ex-angel walked into the dungeon, armed with syringes. And the black-suited British demon looked rather relieved to see them.

“Hallo, boys,” Crowley said with his usual smug smirk. “Castiel. Planning on becoming one of Hell’s Angels?” he added, looking pointedly at the Triumph Motorcycles shirt Cas had borrowed from Dean’s collection. “Considering Heaven doesn’t want you anymore, might be a decent career change.”

Cas didn’t reply. Instead, he simply jabbed his syringe—containing a hefty dose of his now-purified blood—into Crowley’s neck and injected the whole amount. While Crowley was still gasping for breath, Kevin did the same from the opposite side.

The double whammy left Crowley pale, breathless, and glassy-eyed. “What... what are you....”

Cas pulled out a pocket knife, grasped it as best he could in his splinted hand, and cut open his other palm, a superficial cut but deep enough and long enough to bleed freely. Then he recited the exorcism that a priest had altered to cure demons and pressed the cut against Crowley’s mouth. Crowley sucked at the cut noisily... and the demon-binding chains fell off of him.

“Cas... what... why....”

“We’re letting you go,” Cas stated, backing away and holding out his hand for Kevin to bandage.

“Letting me—” Crowley’s eyes cleared suddenly, and he leaned forward. “Moose and Squirrel. What’s happened to Moose and Squirrel?”

“That doesn’t concern you now.”

“ _What happened?!_ ”

“They’re alive, so far as we know.”

Crowley ran a shaking hand over his mouth. “Did... did they go to Oz? They killed the Wicked Witch, you know, or that little ginger friend of theirs did.”

Cas frowned, but Kevin did have a vague memory of Dean saying something on the way back from Branson about having discovered Dorothy Baum and the Wicked Witch of the West in some kind of magical stasis and having Charlie Bradbury’s help in dispatching the witch. Charlie had gone to Oz with Dorothy afterward, using a key that had been stashed in the Men of Letters’ archives. “No,” Kevin stated. “Pretty sure Dorothy took the key with her.”

“But they’re gone. And you’re going after them. And-and you don’t even care that Abaddon’s running roughshod over everything I’ve built....”

“Actually, we do. That’s why we cured you rather than killing you.”

“How is turning me _human_ going to solve anything?”

“Well, for one thing, it makes it easier to do this.” Kevin reached into his pocket, recited an Enochian spell, and blew a handful of chamomile into Crowley’s face, knocking him out.

Gingerly, and with Kevin’s help, Cas got Crowley situated across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and followed Kevin out of the dungeon and up to the garage. There they settled Crowley in the back seat, piled into the front seat themselves, and drove around semi-aimlessly until Crowley came to somewhere outside Hebron, Nebraska.

“Well,” he groaned as he sat up. “Good one, Kev. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Shut up,” Kevin growled.

“No, really. Professional opinion. Mother was a witch.”

Kevin gritted his teeth and kept driving, looking for a town. Once they reached one, he pulled over. “Get out,” he ordered Crowley.

Crowley frowned. “This is it? No ‘Goodbye, good luck, thanks for all the help, Crowley’? Thought we were besties.”

“After you killed my mother? I don’t think so.”

Crowley deflated a little. “Kevin... I lied. Your mother’s alive.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Kevin,” Cas cautioned.

Crowley shook his head. “Trust me or don’t, but—don’t let it stop you. We may yet need Sam and Dean to stop Abaddon, not to mention whatever this is that’s gone on with the angels. Find them, you two. Linda, she’s... I’ll... I’ll look after her, make sure she gets home.”

Kevin swallowed hard. “If you’re telling the truth... tell her I’m sorry and I love her and... goodbye.”

“I shall.” Crowley started to open the car door, hesitated, then thought better of whatever he was going to say and got out.

Kevin drove away as soon as the door closed again, stopping in town for gas and then taking another road out of town to avoid Crowley while still getting back to the highway. During the gas stop, Cas used Dean’s phone to make a call Kevin didn’t overhear. They also stopped in Mankato for groceries, since supplies were running low, and went back to the bunker to rest for a few hours.

Late that evening, there was a knock at the bunker door. Cas went to answer it and returned with a dark-haired lady in a sheriff’s uniform.

“You must be Kevin,” she said before Cas could say anything and offered Kevin her hand. “Sheriff Jody Mills, Minnehaha County, South Dakota.”

Kevin blinked as he shook her hand. “South Dakota?”

“Sioux Falls. I... knew Bobby Singer. That’s how I know Sam and Dean.”

“Oh. Hi.” Kevin had known Bobby only as a ghost, and that only very briefly between the time he’d been activated as a prophet and the time Bobby had asked the Winchesters to burn the flask to which his spirit was tied. But he’d heard enough since then to know that Sam and Dean had viewed Bobby as a second father, and it sounded like Sheriff Mills had been fond of him, too.

She drew in a ragged breath and turned to Cas. “Now, Castiel, what _have_ you done to yourself?”

Cas bristled. “You’re not my mother.”

“No, but you’re one of Bobby’s boys, and I’ll mother you if I want.”

“Sam and Dean—”

“Aren’t here. You told me. But I am not making a sixteen-hour round-trip drive just to pick up a stupid key. I’m here for the night, and you’re beat to hell. C’mere.”

Kevin resolutely did not laugh as Cas submitted with bad grace to the sheriff checking his bandages and otherwise making sure he wasn’t killing himself. They both agreed with much more cheer to her suggestion of sandwiches and beer, though after getting so thoroughly trashed in Branson, Kevin made sure to drink only one beer and drink it slowly. He slept like a log and woke up feeling pretty normal, so the tactic apparently worked. After a hearty breakfast, Sheriff Mills had Kevin show her around and explain what had happened to Sam and Dean. She couldn’t find any flaws in their logic or any evidence they might have missed. So she finally accepted the warded puzzle box that held the bunker key.

“You sure you don’t need this?” she asked, turning it over.

“Dean has his own key,” Kevin replied. “I think Sam does, too. Anyway, if—w-we can use their keys if we need to.”

She nodded slowly, visibly steeled herself to say goodbye, and gave Kevin and Cas each a hug before leaving.

As the door closed, Kevin took a deep breath and let it out again. “And now?”

Cas turned back to the library. “Now we research.”

* * *

The Heterodyne girl. _Lucrezia_. She was loose. She was dangerous. She was _winning_. And just as Bill had been, Gil was too in love with her to see sense.

Klaus had had a plan: corner Gil, convince him that he’d been wasped, and persuade him—by fair means or foul—to accept treatment. Said treatment was to consist of Klaus’ own version of behavior-modifying mind control, ensuring that Gil would serve the empire and not Lucrezia. Phase 2 would be to send Gil to capture Lucrezia. Failing that, but assuming Gil returned to Castle Wulfenbach unharmed, and if Lucrezia or the Knights of Jove somehow managed to turn the tide of the battle, Klaus would see to it that Gil remained behind on Castle Wulfenbach as the empire’s forces retreated... and go deal with Mechanicsburg himself.

It had been a good plan, as far as it went, even allowing for the eventuality of Castle Heterodyne being repaired. Especially if the Knights of Jove remained in Mechanicsburg to see Lucrezia installed as the Heterodyne, Klaus would be able to neutralize the empire’s biggest threats all at once and be freed of the burden of command at the same time. Robur Heterodyne had mentioned some kind of unforeseen consequences in his notes regarding his own experiments along this line, but Klaus didn’t have the luxury of worrying about them. If Lucrezia could wasp _him_ , she could enslave all of Europa and leave no one the wiser. He couldn’t take that risk.

There was only one problem. No one could find Gil.

Oh, someone had spotted a flying machine leaving Castle Wulfenbach bound for the mountains, and scouts had found the machine wrecked—but no body. There was a rumor of another flyer seen heading toward Mechanicsburg, but it was impossible to tell whether it were true or whether the direction reported had been mistaken. If Dupree ever came to after having been apparently poisoned, she might be able to tell Klaus more, but he couldn’t afford to wait. The consequences of letting Lucrezia take full command of Mechanicsburg would be unconscionable. He had already given his orders... orders he was now second-guessing.

He just didn’t know if he dared risk the possibility of Gil being in Mechanicsburg himself. By some reports, Gil had a better rapport with the Jägers than Klaus himself did; they might well have smuggled him back into town if they knew of his affection for the Heterodyne girl. Could Klaus justify this desperate move, knowing that it could leave the empire without a leader?

Princess Anevka met him in the hall leading to the central vault. “Why, Herr Baron! Whatever is the matter?”

“Gil,” he growled. “Confound that boy....”

“Oh, dear. He’s probably gone back to that Agatha girl, just like my brother. This is terrible! You know what Gil and Tarvek are capable of on their own. If they join forces in the service of The Other, they could unleash untold evil across Europa!”

Yes... hadn’t he feared so himself? But he couldn’t be _sure_....

“There’s only one solution.” She put both hands on his shoulders. “ **Klaus. Destroy Mechanicsburg.** ”

“Yes, Mistress,” he breathed and went on his way with new resolve.

* * *

As both the storm and the siege lifted, Sam was still seething over what Dean had done to him, tricking him into accepting possession like that. Miracles were never free for Winchesters; in fact, they usually had an unacceptably high cost. Like, world-endingly high, or at least a life for a life. Maybe the cheapest was when Cas saved Sam’s sanity at the (temporary) cost of his own. Sam hadn’t wanted to die, exactly, but he hadn’t wanted anyone else to get hurt.

Yeah, he had a niggling sense that Cas and Charlie were alive because of Gadreel, and yeah, Gadreel had been helping out with the siege. That didn’t change the fact that Sam hadn’t known what he was agreeing to when he agreed to let Dean save him. And it didn’t change the fact that Dean had trusted someone who had lied about his identity. They were damn lucky it hadn’t come back to bite them—yet.

Driving off the ram had taken the edge off his annoyance. He and Dean were still going to have to talk about this at some point. Dean seemed to be in _Hate me all you want, as long as you’re alive to do it_ mode, which a) was far too much like Dad for comfort and b) seemed to Sam to miss the point altogether. The problem wasn’t that Dean had saved his life; the problem was that he’d lied. And big brother prerogative didn’t give him carte blanche, not on this score.

Sam was still brooding over the situation as Team Heterodyne (he had no idea what to call anyone, since they were all younger than he but also various ranks of nobility) trooped down from the walls and started toward the cathedral, accompanied by a pack of eight-legged weasels and followed by what seemed like half the town. Von Blitzengaard rode up just as they were starting away from the gate, but Lady Agatha declined to ride with him... especially since she could summon Franz with a snap of her fingers if she needed to show off, which reminded Sam way too much of Gabriel. Besides, she was flanked by both of her potential boyfriends and had both Winchesters as her rearguard, which somewhat obviated the need for von Blitzengaard to serve even as a bodyguard (and for the Winchesters to acknowledge him as the king he claimed to be).

As the group arrived at the cathedral, Wul-Gil- _Wulfenbach_ caught Sam’s eye and nodded toward von Blitzengaard. Assuming that meant he wanted Sam to watch von Blitzengaard, Sam nodded back and silently relayed the request to Dean, who snorted quietly and nodded once. Wulfenbach went ahead with Lady Agatha and her seneschal, Vanamonde von Mekkhan, while Prince Tarvek fell back to walk beside von Blitzengaard, who cut in behind Lady Agatha.

At that, Dean glanced at Prince Tarvek and raised an eyebrow at Sam— _We’d better keep an eye on him, too._

Sam raised both eyebrows in agreement. Dean had evidently spent more time with Prince Tarvek after Wulfenbach had sent the prince back to Lady Agatha, but from what little Sam had seen and overheard, he wasn’t trustworthy. His affection for Lady Agatha might be genuine, but he seemed to be on no one’s side except his own.

Thus it was that the Winchesters sat behind the rival claimants to the throne of the Storm King while Lady Agatha underwent whatever ceremonies needed to be performed to secure her accession to her title. Although most people were focused on her, Sam could clearly hear the argument Prince Tarvek and von Blitzengaard were hissing at each other over both Agatha and their own relative claims. And just as everyone else got up to start toward another part of the cathedral, von Blitzengaard muttered something to himself that Sam didn’t quite catch but Dean clearly did.

“Not so fast, Your High-and-mightiness,” Dean rumbled quietly, pressing the barrel of his handgun against the base of von Blitzengaard’s skull. “We need to talk.”

Von Blitzengaard growled softly but stayed put until the rest of the group had moved off. Then he began, “Listen, you upstart American—”

“No, you listen, Tweedle-dum. Your nun girlfriend tried to take Wulfenbach hostage, and now Tarheel thinks you’ll try to replace Agatha. What the hell are you actually doing here?”

“You dare question me? I am the Storm King!”

“Wulfenbach says you’re not,” Sam retorted. “He would know, given who his father is—and he’s some sort of prince himself.”

“You lie! Klaus Wulfenbach is a baron, a usurper, nothing more. He has no ties to the Fifty Families. We would know if he did!”

“Well, it sounded like it was news to his son, too. But you still haven’t answered our question.”

“I do not answer to you, _peasant_.”

Dean chuckled unpleasantly. “Then we’ll just sit right here until you change your mind. Or maybe you’ll answer to somebody else—like Agatha.”

Sam suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Von Blitzengaard didn’t move a muscle, but Sam could tell he was about to try something and tensed, watching von Blitzengaard’s hands.

“Van!” a male voice called from outside. “Lady Heterodyne! Something’s coming!”

Von Blitzengaard reached for something in his coat, and Sam pounced, knocking Dean aside. In the ensuing struggle, von Blitzengaard tried to throw a knife at Dean, but Sam grabbed the hilt—and quite by accident, the blade slashed through von Blitzengaard’s shirt and drew blood. The would-be king gave a gurgling gasp and collapsed, seemingly paralyzed.

Dean sat up, swearing. “What the hell did you do?”

“I don’t know!” Sam returned. “It was an accident!”

Violetta, Lady Agatha’s bodyguard and Prince Tarvek’s cousin, came running. “What happened?”

“He tried to throw a knife at Dean. I fought him for it—was it _poisoned_?”

“Y-yes,” von Blitzengaard gasped. “M-my own... no cure....”

Dean’s eyes widened. “Oh, good job, Laertes. Real smooth.” At Sam’s double-take at the _Hamlet_ reference, he added, “What? I read.”

Violetta pulled some kind of test kit out of her utility belt, but von Blitzengaard gasped, “Don’t... bother... it was... Nullabist....”

“ _What?!_ ” she exploded. “Tweedle, you swore you’d given up those things!”

“H-h-have now,” von Blitzengaard replied and breathed his last.

She swore and looked around, then spotted one of the mummy-like undead that seemed to inhabit the cathedral and pointed to it. “YOU! Get a coffin for this idiot right away—he’ll be decomposing in about thirty minutes!”

The mummy rasped some kind of affirmative and shuffled off to dispose of von Blitzengaard’s mortal coil. And Sam decided he really needed to stop thinking about _Hamlet_.

Dean frowned. “Thirty minutes?”

Violetta nodded. “It causes such severe contamination that the body liquefies. That’s why it’s called Nullabist—there’s nothing left.”

Both brothers swore and looked at each other with wide eyes. Von Blitzengaard had tried to use that on _Dean_. If Sam hadn’t been there, hadn’t been watching, hadn’t been faster....

“Hey!” she snapped, drawing their attention. “We need to get back to Agatha. There’s some kind of Wulfenbach craft coming in fast.”

Nothing more needed to be said, and the three of them headed for the cathedral’s front door. Still, Sam’s mind kept whirling. What if that knife had hit her... what if he’d meant it for Agatha....

 _You just saved your brother’s life, idjit_ , Sam’s inner Bobby interrupted, and his heart squeezed with that wry affectionate pang that always went with memories of Bobby. _Quit with the what-ifs and go help save Agatha’s._

It was all Sam could do not to answer _Yes, sir_ aloud, but he might not have managed to suppress the fleeting ghost of a smile.

* * *

As Agatha and her retinue rushed down to the front steps of the cathedral, Gil wished fervently that Agatha hadn’t left the lightning stick somewhere along the walk in from the walls, because even he couldn’t tell what this incoming craft was. By the time Violetta arrived with the Winchesters, though, it was nearly to the cathedral.

“Where’s Tweedle?” he heard Sturmvoraus ask.

“He tried to get Dean with a Nullabist knife,” Violetta replied. “Last mistake he’ll ever make.”

Sturmvoraus sighed. “Can’t say I’m sorry, not knowing what he’d become.”

“We should stay under cover, you know.”

But it was too late. The craft landed, was challenged by Mamma Gkika, and opened to reveal Father with something spherical in his hand. The wasp eaters shrieked in unison, confirming Sturmvoraus’ theory that Father had been wasped. Mamma attacked, but Father didn’t flinch, and when she demanded his surrender, he agreed—and reached to punch some sort of button on the spherical device.

Which exploded in a burst of white light as a brass fist closed over it.

Singed but evidently otherwise unhurt, Father startled back and looked up. “What—what—”

“I am Gadreel,” announced the clank-wearing angel. “I am an angel of the Lord. And you are not yourself. Allow me.” He moved his hand to the back of Father’s neck and caused it to glow again. Father choked and gagged... and finally coughed the slaver wasp into Gadreel’s other hand, whereupon Gadreel swiftly crushed the wasp.

Sturmvoraus let out a low whistle of appreciation. Everyone else, including Gil, was staring openmouthed. Well, except for the Winchesters, who didn’t seem shocked at all by what Gadreel had done.

“Klaus, listen to me,” Gadreel continued. “You have not yet seen the full truth.”

That broke Father’s shock, which boiled over into anger. “The full truth? _The full truth?!_ I’ll show you the truth about this girl you serve!” And he ran toward Agatha.

“Father, stop!” Gil cried.

“Stand, all!” Gadreel thundered. “Sam, she is possessed!”

No sooner had Gadreel finished his warning than Father snatched off Agatha’s locket. Agatha cried out—and her stance changed as Lucrezia shrieked, “KLAUS!”

But Dean grabbed her, and Gadreel hauled Father backward down the steps as Sam began chanting, “ _Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus...._ ”

“She’s not—” Sturmvoraus began.

But Gil, sensing some kind of power building, slapped the back of a hand against his old school-fellow’s chest. “Shut up. It might work.”

“I don’t know who you think you are,” Lucrezia snarled, “but this little experiment of yours has no chance of working.”

“Says you,” Dean retorted. “Didn’t even need a devil’s trap to stop you.”

“Not a devil. A _goddess_.” She writhed in his grasp, as if Sam’s chant were actually hurting her. “And if... if you get rid of me... the girl dies!”

“... _audi nos_ ,” Sam finished.

With a wail and a crackle of electricity, a cloud of grey mist shot out of Agatha and into the air, leaving Agatha slumped semi-conscious in Dean’s arms. It flickered briefly into the form of Lucrezia Mongfish a couple of times, then raced toward Father.

“ZEKE!” Dean bellowed.

Suddenly Gadreel had a silver short sword in his hand and was between Father and Lucrezia. The cloud shot lightning at the clank, but somehow Gadreel had gained enough control over the clank that the lightning had no effect. He swung his sword through the cloud, and it exploded in a shower of sparks.

In the stunned silence that followed, Gil could just barely hear Dean murmur to himself, “I gotta think of somethin’ else to call him....”

That snapped Gil out of it enough to turn to Agatha. “Are you all right?”

Agatha nodded wearily and straightened. “Be fine once I get some cake.”

“That won’t be the end of The Other,” Sturmvoraus noted. “We still have to find the versions in Anevka and Zola and destroy the beacon engine and all of the slaver engines, plus whatever else she might have stashed away in hidden lairs we don’t know about. That’ll be—”

Father suddenly gasped loudly and clutched at his chest. “ _Gil!_ ”

Sam ran to steady him. “Hey, whoa, Baron, you okay?”

“The wasp,” Father wheezed. “Toxin.”

“Gadreel can—”

Father looked at Gil and shook his head. “No. No healing. It’s time. Sorry, son... notes... my quarters... all your questions... should be answered....”

Gil felt tears welling up in his eyes. “Father, _no_.”

But Father looked at Sam. “Help me... address....”

Sam swallowed hard and looked at Gadreel, who supported Father from the other side, and the two of them helped him climb the steps to stand near Gil, Agatha, and Sturmvoraus. The effort seemed to weary Father, but then he drew in a deep breath and straightened as much as he was able.

“People... of Mechanicsburg,” he declared, “my son Gilgamesh... is my heir. To him I leave... all my wo-... worldly goods. I also he-... hereby acknowledge... Lady Agatha... as the Heterodyne... and Prince Ta-... Tarvek Sturmvoraus... as rightful heir... to the throne... of the Storm King. To these vassals... and my son... I leave my empire... in good hands.” That pronouncement delivered, he slumped against Sam again, more heavily.

Gil and Agatha hurried to his side. “Herr Baron,” Agatha said, “I’m so terribly sorry....”

Father snorted and smiled. “Sorry. Your father’d... be proud.” Then he looked Gil in the eye and added, “As proud... as I am... of you.”

And then he was gone.

Gil found himself hugging Agatha and watching in silence as Gadreel lifted Father’s body and carried it into the cathedral. There’d be no resurrections this time—even if Father hadn’t forbidden it, he’d died too publicly for it to be kept secret or passed off as rumor. This was real, and it was final.

“Hey,” said Sam gently. “At least he died free.”

Gil nodded slowly. “Yes. He did.”

After another moment, Agatha sniffled and pulled away, wiped the tears off her face, and turned to the crowd. “As befits a friend of the Heterodyne Family,” she stated, “the late Baron Wulfenbach will lie in state in the cathedral until such time as his remains can be transferred to Wulfenbach for burial.”

“Thank you,” Gil whispered to her. Then he cleared his throat and addressed the crowd himself. “Friends of Mechanicsburg, this town will remain under the protection of the empire, but I am pleased to return its governance to the Lady Heterodyne. Today should have been a day for rejoicing; for more than myself, it is also a day for mourning. Alas, in war, we have too little time for either. Prince Tarvek and I must return at once to Sturmhalten, to see to his coronation, to restore order, and to gain better intelligence on the remaining copies of The Other still at large. I shall return to Mechanicsburg in peace, however, for here I leave my father... and my heart.”

People were still trying to figure out whether to cheer when someone inside the cathedral called, “Sam! Dean!”

Everyone near the doors turned just as a thin man with curly dark hair and a younger Oriental man with his arms full of... something came running out. Both were dressed in the same manner as the Winchesters.

Dean frowned. “Cas! Kevin! What the hell are you guys doin’ here?”


	4. Speak in Clouded Clues

“A month and a _half_?!” Sam and Dean echoed incredulously, coming to a halt beside the Impala.

Kevin nodded. “Sorry it took so long.”

After Agatha had assigned a minion to take Cas and Kevin’s gear to the castle, Dean had volunteered to drive Tarvek and Wulfenbach—who now insisted they call him Gil—to Sturmhalten, but since there were still some things the kids had to do at the cathedral and then at the castle before they could leave, Dean was just going to put the sniper rifle away. He almost forgot that purpose, though, in light of what Cas and Kevin had just told them. “Dude, we got here at sunrise _this morning_. The sun hasn’t even completely set yet! How the hell—”

“Evidently time passes much more slowly here,” Cas explained.

Sam shook his head. “It’s like Narnia in reverse.”

Dean sighed and opened the trunk.

“We would have been here sooner,” Kevin continued, “but there weren’t any records in Charlie’s computer, so we had to search the files by hand, and it took a week for us to even find the room where the journal was hidden. And when we found it, the whole thing was in some weird mashup of German, Latin, and Romanian, _and_ encrypted to boot. Plus, there are parts in some language even Cas has never seen before.”

Dean put the rifle back in its case and closed the trunk. “Wait, what journal?”

“Barry Heterodyne’s journal,” Cas replied. “We brought a copy of it with us. He’s Agatha’s uncle.”

“Is?”

“He visited our world in 1945, just after the end of World War II. But in this world, I suspect that visit was no more than a year ago.”

“That’s no guarantee he came back here,” Sam noted, “or that he’s still alive if he did.”

Dean nodded. “Shouldn’t get Agatha’s hopes up.”

“Anyway,” Kevin resumed, “once we did get it deciphered, we had to rebuild the gateway and recalibrate it and all. I guess we’re lucky there’s some sort of portal device in the cathedral’s crypt for the gateway to connect to—no telling where we would have ended up otherwise.”

Sam frowned. “See, that’s the weird thing. It spat us out at Mamma Gkika’s. Why would Barry design the portal robot to do that if the cathedral has a device it could have connected to? Even assuming the Doom Bell had opened a rift, dropping us in the open had to have taken a hell of a lot more energy.”

Before anyone could come up with an answer, Theo and Sleipnir arrived, he carrying a basket of food on the side opposite where he’d been shot in the shoulder by Vole, she carrying a table and folding chairs. “Mamma’s compliments,” she said, setting the table down. “Everyone’s headed back to the castle, but Gil and Sturmvoraus should be finished there about the time we finish eating.”

The Americans all made noises of pleased agreement, and soon they were sitting down to a pleasant picnic, though Sam whispered something to Kevin—probably to warn him not to look too closely at the food. Dean, quite frankly, was too hungry to care what Jägers considered fit food for humans and dug into his sandwich without hesitation, and either it wasn’t too weird or he was hungrier than he thought, because it tasted really good. And Theo and Sleipnir did most of the talking, explaining their relationship to each other (recently eloped), to Agatha (Theo’s cousin), and to Gil (schoolmates), along with some long-winded story about Andronicus Valois and Euphrosynia Heterodyne that somehow explained why Tarvek wanted to marry Agatha. Dean didn’t really care, so he tuned that part out, knowing Sam would pay attention enough for both of them. He was trying to figure out how to apologize to Cas for kicking him out of the bunker and how much, if anything, he should say about Zeke—er, Gadreel.

Maybe he should just keep calling Gadreel “Zeke.” Aside from the identity scam, the angel _had_ kept his word... so far. Then again, the situation might have looked different if they hadn’t gotten pulled into this world. Oh, hell, Dean didn’t know.

Cas finished eating around the same time Dean did, so when there was a break in the conversation, Dean asked Cas to walk a short way from the table with him so they could talk. “Hey, so,” he began quietly once they were out of Sam’s earshot, “I, uh... how’s your arm?”

Cas looked down at the air cast Kevin had explained on the way from the cathedral. “It’s healing. Slowly, but well enough for a human. I should be able to begin therapy exercises in another week or two.”

“Good, good.” Dean sighed. “Listen, Cas, back at the bunker... sorry I told you to go.”

“You weren’t entirely wrong, Dean. Ephraim was drawn by my pain. He could just as easily have been drawn to the bunker.”

“Sounds like you handled him okay even without me, though. I’m proud of you.”

Cas smiled a little.

“And... thanks. Y’know, for looking after Kevin and everything.”

“I’m glad he needed me, to be honest. After talking with Ephraim, I was uncertain as to what I should do. The angels are in great trouble, but if Kevin were unprotected, far worse would certainly come once Metatron realized his error.”

“Yeah, well, let’s not get hung up on the what ifs. He’s safe here, and so are you.”

“For the moment, though I wonder whether I ought to return.”

“No, dude. We’re here to help Agatha, but whatever’s going on in Sturmhalten, it sounds like it’s gonna take both Sam and me. You and Kevin need to stay here, help out with the cleanup, maybe give Agatha advice. She’s got the Jäger generals and Krosp, but she could probably use a higher perspective, if you know what I mean.”

“Krosp?”

“King of Cats. He’s a construct—it’s a long story.” And Dean hadn’t heard it, so he couldn’t explain.

Cas sighed. “Dean, I _failed_ at being an angel. I failed as a hunter. Working at Gas’n’Sip was a chance at some quiet human dignity, but... I don’t deserve to be in charge of anything more than that.”

“Who said anything about being in charge? You’re a consultant.”

“Since when is my advice worth taking?”

Dean put a hand on his buddy’s shoulder. “Since you realized you don’t know it all.”

Cas blinked, considering that statement.

“Besides, somebody’s gotta keep Kevin away from those barmaids at Mamma’s. He tell you what happened to him in Branson?”

“No.” But from the amused sparkle in his eyes, Cas could guess. “He did say he’d been _sick_.”

“King-sized hangover, man. He’d been down for three days when we left. I don’t even know how the hell he got so wasted to begin with. Point is, the kid’s an amateur. Mamma’s girls dress up like Jägers _on purpose_ —they’d put Kevin in the hospital without even trying.”

Cas actually chuckled.

Sam walked over to them at that point. “Hey, so Sleipnir thinks we need to try to find some period clothes just so the Wulfenbach forces don’t freak out when they see us—not so much because of the difference in style as because we ‘look common.’” He didn’t use air quotes, and he barely refrained from rolling his eyes, but his disgust with the implied insult was plain enough in both his tone and his expression.

Dean frowned. “Dude, Dad was a mechanic.”

“Yeah, but Henry wasn’t. Look, you know I’m good with plaid and jeans, and the Castle Wulfenbach crew has already seen me in this, but she’s got a point. The Men of Letters were the elite. At least one of us ought to... look like we’ve got some authority. I mean, we’re not gonna have time to buy anything for me, but Theo said he might have something you could borrow.”

Dean was about to object again when he suddenly remembered a suit of clothes he’d hidden under the Impala’s back seat and forgotten about. He went to see if the clothes were still there, and finding that they were, he pulled them out triumphantly. Even the hat was only slightly dusty.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“You said authority.” Dean put on the cowboy hat and held up the stack of clothes to display the tin star still pinned to the lapel of the vest. “I carry a badge.”

Sam did roll his eyes at that.

Curious, the others came over to investigate. “Is that for real?” Kevin asked.

“Yup,” Dean replied. “Back in 1861, I used to be sheriff of Sunrise, Wyoming.”

“For what,” Sam countered, “six hours?!”

“Hey, it’s a real badge, Sam.”

“You know what? _Fine_. At least it’s not your Moondoor costume or your Untouchables suit.”

“I look damn good in that suit, and you know it. And I’ll be lucky if I ever get to wear it again.”

“Why, don’t you have _that_ stashed in the car somewhere?”

“Hell, no. It’s _hanging up_ in my room at home.”

Sam huffed and rolled his eyes again. Dean did know what the real problem was, and they were going to have the discussion Sam wanted soon—but not right here and right now. Here and now, he was going to keep giving Sam something else to be annoyed about.

So he turned to Theo and Sleipnir. “You guys know of someplace where I can change?”

“Uh, sure,” said Theo. “We’ve got a room at the inn a few blocks from here. I’ll show you.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

As they left, both Kevin and Sleipnir started asking Sam all about the trip to Sunrise, where Sam had had to convince Samuel Colt to let them borrow his gun that could kill (almost) anything and Dean had used it to kill a phoenix—only for their time to run out before they could collect the phoenix ash they needed to kill the Mother of All Monsters, though Colt came through in the end and arranged for a bottle of ash to be held by a parcel delivery service and delivered to Bobby’s house in 2012. Given the sketchy dealings Cas had been involved in at the time as part of his attempt to stop Raphael from restarting the Apocalypse, Dean was just as glad not to have to explain in front of Cas. Instead, since Theo was also curious, Dean gave him the shortened and cleaned-up version.

“Wow!” Theo said as Dean finished, just about the time they got to the inn. “That’s as exciting as a Heterodyne story! This gun, though... is it a death ray?”

Dean snorted. “Nah, just a revolver, but it’s charmed to kill monsters and demons—even the kind where you have to jump up and down three times, roll a head of cabbage, and giggle.” At Theo’s odd look, he shrugged. “Joke.”

“Ah.”

“So these Heterodyne stories—are they, like, dime novels or something?”

“A step or two above dime novels in quality, but essentially, yes. They’re the mostly true exploits of Bill and Barry Heterodyne, with their sidekick Klaus Wulfenbach and their constructs Punch and Judy. The Heterodyne Boys travel all over, winning hearts and fighting evil. Bill always ends up with Lucrezia Mongfish, and Barry always woos the High Priestess of whatever.”

Dean frowned. “Lu— _the_ Lucrezia Mongfish?”

“Strange but true. Aunt Lucrezia really was the villain’s beautiful daughter who tried to go straight... at least for a few years. How long she’d been The Other before the night she disappeared is anyone’s guess. That part’s not common knowledge and definitely doesn’t get into the stories.”

“Wish Chuck had left a few things out of ours,” Dean muttered.

Theo blinked. “Pardon?”

“Ah, we had books written about us a few years back, series called _Supernatural_ , probably about the same level of quality. Except ours _were_ true. Angels tapped a prophet to write what they called ‘the Winchester Gospels.’ He’d published, like, sixty of the damn things before we found out about it. Then he got through the end of the Apocalypse and disappeared, and his ex put ’em all on the Internet—uh, it’s a... huge network of information.” Dean decided not to mention that Chuck Shurley’s aforementioned ex, Becky Rosen, had also had a major thing for Sam. There were some buttons that weren’t worth pushing right now.

Being a spark, however, Theo was more interested in hearing about the Internet anyway, so they talked computers as they made their way up to the DuMedds’ room and Dean ducked behind a folding screen to get changed. They were debating the merits of fiberoptic cable over copper wire when someone knocked on the door.

“Dean, are you decent?” Sleipnir called from the other side.

Dean looked down at himself with a start to find that he had, in fact, finished dressing without even realizing it, down to fitting his M1911 into the holster of the gun belt somehow. “Uh, yeah,” he called back. “C’mon in.”

Sleipnir came in carrying a small flask of some purply-pinkish stuff that didn’t exactly look like Pepto-Bismol, but though she looked like she was about to give Theo a peck on the cheek, she whistled appreciatively as Dean came out from behind the screen. “Now _that_ looks American!”

Embarrassed, Dean ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. Theo cleared his throat.

Sleipnir kissed him and brought the flask over to Dean. “Here’s the anti-wasp potion. Sturmvoraus is pretty sure the Lucrezias won’t have had time to make another spark wasp, but Gil figures better safe than sorry. Sam’s already taken his dose, and Agatha’s treating Cas and Kevin now.”

Dean started to object that he wasn’t a spark, but that would probably make the potion more necessary than less. So he sighed and accepted the flask.

“Oh, and just so you know, it’s got a hell of a kick.”

“Thanks.” Dean tossed the stuff back, gagged at the taste—and suddenly felt like he was being electrocuted. He had just dismissed the worry about what this shock would do to his heart, once almost fatally damaged by a line-of-duty taser accident, with the memory that his angel-repaired heart was no longer in that kind of danger when the feeling passed and he collapsed. Immediately after that, he felt two brass fingers press against his forehead, and relief and refreshment swept over him.

“How are you?” Gadreel asked as Dean’s eyes focused on him.

“Better. Thanks.” Dean held up a hand, and the angel helped him to his feet. “Didn’t hear you come in,” he added, ducking back behind the screen long enough to gather up his other clothes.

“I did not use the door.”

“Oh, so you _have_ got your wings back.”

“In a... way. The waters of the Dyne seem to be undoing Metatron’s curse by degrees—but its power may also be tying my grace to this world.” Gadreel wasn’t using Sam’s voice, but Dean could almost picture Sam’s worried expression as Gadreel looked down and away from him. “I am not sure whether that is good or bad.”

Theo frowned. “Wait, did you drink _more_?”

Gadreel nodded. “It was necessary to regain the use of _my_ wings to prevent the baron from activating the stasis bomb. The clank’s wings are quite functional, but they are far too slow for the speed I needed to avoid the drop armor’s defenses.”

“Stasis bomb?”

“The device he intended to activate would have placed Mechanicsburg in a bubble wherein time stopped. The consequences could have been disastrous.”

Theo gulped, and Sleipnir put both her arms around his waist as he wrapped his good arm around her shoulders.

But Dean’s eyes narrowed as he considered the implications of Gadreel’s revelation about the water. “So you’re saying that even if we get that thing in the cathedral set up so we can go home....”

“Even assuming that too much time has not passed for return to be wise... I may not be able to leave this world again. But Dean, exile here is far preferable to Heaven’s prison in our world, especially since there is work for me to do here that may help me regain my honor. Many are wounded; I can help heal. Much is destroyed; I can help restore. And Agatha seems to think I might fit in here.”

“You’re stayin’ here, then. I mean, while me and Sam take Gil and Tarvek to Sturmhalten.”

“If you have no objections.”

“Dude, you don’t owe me a thing. You wanna heal people to pay your debts, start with Theo here. But sooner or later, you _are_ gonna have to face up to Cas. I ain’t doin’ that for you.” Dean picked up his fallen hat, put it on, and started for the door.

“Can you not—”

“No. We’ve already wasted enough time. Sooner we get Gil to Sturmhalten, the better chance we have of headin’ Anevka off at the pass.” And with a nod to Theo and a touch of the hat to Sleipnir, Dean left.

He arrived back at the square to find the streetlights coming on, Cas and Kevin slowly coming around from their dose of anti-wasp potion, Gil and Sam poring over a map that was spread out on the Impala’s trunk, and Tarvek hugging Agatha goodbye. Someone had stuck a flag with the Wulfenbach winged-tower badge on the Impala’s radio antenna, which was probably the easiest way to avoid getting shot at. By the time Dean had said goodbye to Kevin and Cas, Sam was calling him over to check out the map, and Tarvek was trying to convince the weasels, which were still following him around, to stay with Violetta.

“Nice,” Gil said as he stepped away from the car and Dean approached it. Then he saw the badge and shook his head. “Why couldn’t the Jägers have given me a badge instead of a flaming hat?” But before Dean could do more than chuckle, Gil walked off.

“So get this,” Sam said as Dean walked up to him. “Sturmhalten’s only, like, sixty miles from here. The good news is, it’s a pretty straight shot; we hang a right at Mulverschtag, but that’s the only turnoff. The bad news is, we have to go over the mountains here”—he pointed to a pass marked on the map—“to get out of this valley, then another steep ascent to Balan’s Gap to get to Sturmhalten... and it’s a cobblestone road.”

Dean opened the trunk just far enough and just long enough to toss his other clothes in, then returned his attention to the map. “What kind of cobblestones?”

“Gil said they’re flat, but the passes haven’t been open long enough for maintenance crews to check for winter damage yet. _But_ since it looks like that’s the direction the baron ordered his forces to retreat, he doesn’t think the road will be impassible.”

“Great. Well, they’ve got, what, two hours’ head start?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“So we should catch up to the rearguard in... ten, twenty miles?”

“Depending on how fast they’re running, how bad the bottleneck at the first pass is, and how fast we drive.”

“Mm, true.” Dean rubbed his chin and tried to calculate what the most effective speed would be, assuming that the Jägers pursuing the Wulfenbach troops to the pass would recognize the car and let them through but the troops themselves wouldn’t.

His train of thought was interrupted by a barely audible but breathless “ _Gil_....”

“Shh,” was the only reply.

Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked at Dean, cleared his throat, and went to get Tarvek. But since heading toward the driver’s side would have meant walking toward Gil and Agatha, Dean opted to continue pretending to study the map.

“I don’t know what state Wulfenbach is in,” Gil said after a moment. “We haven’t been back that I remember. Father said the castle was unsalvageable and the town had been devastated, but I don’t know if the cathedral’s still standing or if the family crypt is still useable. I’ll ask Boris, but... if... if we can’t....”

“Then we’ll bury him here,” Agatha replied. “I think my father and Uncle Barry would want that.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Gil sighed. “I have to go. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Gil... be careful.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Guess I’d better tell the castle to let you guys leave town.”

“I’d appreciate it. And so would Dean,” Gil added, raising his voice slightly.

Dean took that as his cue to fold up the map. “Hey, can I help it if you two decided to make out within earshot?”

Agatha giggled.

Dean turned to see Gil looking like he didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused, but still with one arm around Agatha’s shoulders, while she had one arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder. Both were blushing slightly, and Dean chuckled in spite of himself. “Don’t worry, Agatha. We’ll keep him safe for you.”

Gil’s eyes narrowed even further, but Agatha giggled again. “Thank you.”

Dean smiled at her, took a deep breath, and met Gil’s eyes. “Ready?”

Gil sighed. “I suppose so.” He pressed a kiss on Agatha’s temple before letting her go and walking back toward the car while Dean went around to the back door on the driver’s side. “I don’t need a bodyguard,” he growled quietly as he approached Dean.

Dean huffed and opened the door. “You and Sam. Get in the car.”

Gil snorted but obeyed, and Dean closed the door behind him.

Sam finished saying goodbye to Cas and Kevin at that point and ushered Tarvek over to the car, holding the back door while Tarvek hesitated briefly before getting in. Then both brothers got in the front seat in tandem and closed their doors at the same time, and Dean started the car.

And something in the back seat squeaked in surprise.

Dean looked back sharply to spy a small fuzzy face peeking out from behind Tarvek’s coat collar. “No weasels in the car!” he thundered.

“Dook?” asked the weasel, all wide-eyed innocence.

“I tried—” Tarvek began.

But Gil interrupted, “He might prove useful. So might the wasp eater.”

“Oh, thank you very much.”

The weasel wrapped itself around Tarvek’s neck and trilled happily.

“Gil’s got a point, Dean,” said Sam. “We know Sturmhalten’s full of revenants, but unless the Vespiary Squad tested all of the Wulfenbach troops, we need the wasp eater for detection.”

Dean sighed. “Fine. Just keep it off my seats.”

“It seems happy enough where it is,” Tarvek noted, absently scratching it behind the ears.

Dean decided not to comment and backed carefully out of the spot where he’d parked and onto the street. Getting through the first few turns in the deepening gloom was a bit tricky, even with the streetlights shining, but once he passed Mamma Gkika’s, he was on familiar enough ground that he could get to the gate without difficulty. The gate was blocked by a thick wall of massive thorny tendrils, but as the car approached, the blockage untangled itself—presumably at Agatha’s command—and retreated enough that the car could pass through unimpeded.

Just as they cleared the hedge and Dean eased the speed up to 50, he heard a slight snore and glanced in the rearview mirror to see the rival princes both sacked out. Even the weasel was asleep. That was a good thing, since he didn’t really want an audience for the conversation he needed to have with Sam. Still, Dean had to judge his timing carefully—he wanted to get this over with, but he knew Sam needed to be in the mood to talk.

They were about a mile out of town when Sam sighed and turned his head to look out his window rather than the windshield. That was Dean’s cue.

“I wanted to tell you, Sam,” he said quietly.

Sam frowned and looked at him. “What?”

“About Gadreel. As soon as we left the hospital, I was gonna tell you. But Gadreel said you could kick him out, and if you did that too soon, you’d die.”

“And you believed him.”

“Not like I had any choice, or any reason to think he was lyin’. Cas had said he was okay.”

“But that was when you thought he was Ezekiel.”

“Dammit, I had him in a holy fire trap. How the hell was I to know he’d give me the wrong name?”

“Dean, did you even once think about how wrong this could have gone?”

“Yes.”

Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Good things don’t just happen, not to us. And yeah, I knew possession would be the last thing you’d want. So yeah, I worried about it. And I hated lyin’ to you. But I just... I couldn’t take it, little brother. I couldn’t watch you die again.”

Sam sighed heavily and looked out the window again. But several seconds later, he said in an even lower voice, “I know what you mean.”

Dean blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“Von Blitzengaard,” Sam explained. “I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if that knife had hit you.” He shook his head. “I dunno what I would have done, but it wouldn’t have been pretty.”

“Probably woulda run over a bunch of weasels and married their keeper.”

“Dude, will you _drop that?_ I’m sorry I didn’t look for you. Okay? And I should have been there for Kevin. Just... I thought you were dead. I was really messed up, made a lot of mistakes. And your bringing it up all the time doesn’t help.”

Dean sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”

A wounded silence fell over the car that went on for what felt like hours but was probably less than a minute. Truth be told, Dean wasn’t at all sure what he _had_ meant by that wisecrack, which wasn’t even very good as a joke. Last year he probably had harped too much on the fact that Sam’s reaction to Dean and Cas getting zapped into Purgatory while cleaning up the worst of the mess Cas had made fighting Raphael was to ditch all of his phones, thereby also abandoning Kevin to Crowley’s custody, and drive aimlessly but recklessly toward all points not Seattle until he’d hit a dog and hooked up with the vet. Part of the problem was that Sam hadn’t said much more than that about the year Dean had been missing until _just now_. But Dean didn’t think he’d brought it up since his apology that had talked Sam out of killing himself by finishing the third trial. Maybe it was still too soon, or maybe Dean’s own mistakes were still too fresh in Sam’s mind.

“We can’t keep doin’ this,” Sam finally said in a barely audible voice.

“I know,” Dean replied. After another, less tense pause, he added, “So I guess we gotta stop gettin’ ourselves killed.”

Sam huffed and smiled, and Dean smiled back, but they both knew it wasn’t really a joke. Still, it had cleared the air enough for the silence to be comfortable again.

Then Dean glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the barest glimmer of moonlight reflecting off Gil’s half-open eyes. But he decided not to call the kid on eavesdropping—turn about was fair play, after all.


	5. One Problem at a Time

Gil hadn’t meant to fall deeply asleep—or to fall asleep at all, really—but in the quiet after the Winchesters’ conversation, something about the motion of the car got past his guard, and he dropped off for real. He roused a little when the car slowed, just enough to be aware of voices.

“Oh, it’s you, sir.” Was that _Higgs?_ “Evenin’.” It was—Airman Third Class Axel Higgs, who was far more than he seemed and had some kind of loyalty to the Heterodynes that predated his service in the Wulfenbach air fleet.

“Hey,” Dean returned. “This is my brother, Sam.”

“Sir,” Higgs acknowledged. “Master Gil with you, is he?”

“And Prince Tarvek. Gotta get ’em back to Sturmhalten. The baron’s dead.”

“ _What?!_ ” gasped a female voice.

“Oh, hey, Zeetha.”

Higgs cleared his throat. “I’ve the princess to see back to Mechanicsburg, but I’ll just radio ahead, shall I, let them know to expect you?”

“That’d help, thanks.”

“Very good, sir. Expect I’ll be seein’ you in Sturmhalten.”

“All right. See you.”

The car sped up again as Sam asked, “Who’s the green-haired chick?”

“Princess Zeetha of Skifander. It’s some lost city of Amazons—not our kind; more like Wonder Woman....”

Gil was out again before he could work out what that meant.

The next time he surfaced briefly, the car was stopped and a recording of Father’s voice was playing somewhere outside, over the summery sound of crickets and frogs. Sturmvoraus and the wasp eater were both snoring softly. But Gil didn’t really wake up until sometime later, when he felt two hands on his shoulders and two on his upper arms, all shaking him in tandem.

“Your Highness? Your Highness, wake up.”

Gil forced his eyes open a sliver and recognized the drone of an airship engine in the background. “’M here.”

“Not quite, you’re not.” One hand moved off his arm, and Gil smelled coffee.

That got his eyes open better, and he finally realized that all the hands belonged with the face looking at him in concern. “Boris? You look terrible.”

Boris handed Gil his coffee with one of his lower hands while the upper hand on that side released Gil’s shoulder and rubbed Boris’ head. “It’s been a nightmare, Your Highness. Your father’s commands grew... erratic, irrational. When I questioned him, he sent me to oversee the ongoing effort to restore order in Sturmhalten. But for the past two hours or so, Princess Anevka’s been trying to countermand all of my orders.”

That, along with the first sip of coffee, jolted Gil fully awake. “Anevka?!”

“What?!” gasped Sturmvoraus from the other end of the seat. “Is she _here?!_ ”

Boris shook his head and dropped his hands to gesture with. “No, no, she’s still on Castle Wulfenbach. We’re headed back to meet it. The Winchesters have given me all the information they have and played me a recording of your father’s last address, along with some images of the late Prince von Blitzengaard.”

Somewhat startled, Gil looked toward the front seat, where Dean was humming under his breath, drumming on the steering wheel, and staring out the windscreen at the closed loading ramp and Sam brandished a little clank that looked like one of Agatha’s. Gil nodded and took another drink of coffee. Right, he’d forgotten that Gadreel had borrowed that and somehow stepped back in time a few minutes to record from a different angle than his own memories would have allowed. And judging from his reactions that morning, Dean hated to fly. Gil really had slept harder than he meant to.

“But I need to ask,” Boris continued. “Why did you react that way to Princess Anevka’s name?”

“She’s The Other,” Gil and Sturmvoraus chorused.

“Or more accurately,” Sturmvoraus continued, “her processor houses a copy of The Other’s consciousness. The version that used to be in Agatha created this copy to help ensure our escape from Sturmhalten.”

“Used to be?”

“The Winchesters... exorcised her, I suppose. I didn’t think it would work because she wasn’t a demon _per se_ , but evidently enough of Lucrezia’s spirit was downloaded into Agatha for the exorcism to work.”

Boris nodded slowly. “That confirms what they told me. Thank you, Your Highness.”

Gil’s eyes narrowed. “You approved her presence on Castle Wulfenbach, didn’t you?”

Boris took off his pince-nez with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with another. “She came with your father, but she’d been with him at the hospital, and I _had_ approved that. The reports from Dr. Sun said he listened to her when he wouldn’t listen to anyone else. I knew that, as a clank, she couldn’t be a revenant. I suppose I should have guessed, especially after what you and Prince Tarvek discussed about the new slaver wasps, but....”

Gil sighed. “You couldn’t know, Boris. She’s a good enough actress to fool the unwary. What about that army you said was coming from Sturmhalten?”

Boris put his pince-nez back on. “Our forces retreating from Mechanicsburg should be meeting them any moment now. Orders are to engage immediately, accept surrenders but use revenant containment measures on all prisoners, and otherwise drive the attackers back to Balan’s Gap.”

“No wonder Anevka’s been trying to countermand. Have her arrested at once.”

“I’ll give the order, Your Highness, but to the best of my knowledge, no one knows where she is.”

“She’s near a _radio_ , obviously,” Dean stated flatly.

“That doesn’t actually help much,” Gil admitted. “Castle Wulfenbach dwarfs this airship. There are far too many places she could hide.”

“Then we’ll have to be ready for her,” Sam said. “And we’ll make her come to us.”

Sturmvoraus frowned. “And how, exactly, do you propose to do that?”

“She started countermanding Boris after the baron left to come do something to Mechanicsburg.”

“Stasis bomb,” Dean reported. “Woulda trapped the city in a bubble where time stopped.”

Boris gasped. “Are you certain?”

“Have it on the highest authority.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Sam interrupted, “Anevka clearly thinks both the baron and Gil are dead or out of commission, and probably Tarvek, too. She’s supposed to be Tarvek’s sister, which should mean her authority trumps Boris’. But Gil’s the new baron, and Tarvek’s still alive. So if _Gil_ starts issuing orders personally....”

“She’ll be there to meet us,” Gil agreed. “If she thinks she can win me over, she’ll come alone and try to talk her way out of any accusation of treason. If she knows she can’t, she’ll come ready to fight. Either way, she’ll come to us.”

Boris nodded slowly. “But can we fight her? She’s strong enough to keep up with your father, after all.”

Gil smiled at the back of Dean’s head. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that.”

Sturmvoraus gave him a sidelong look. “Why does that make me nervous?”

Gil chuckled, drank the last of his coffee, and went with Boris to the nearest radio. Once he had repeated Boris’ orders and also ordered the castle’s crew to detain Anevka if she was found, he suddenly realized he had no idea where they were. “How much time do we have?” he asked instead, given the limited possibilities as far as location went.

“We should meet the castle within the next five to ten minutes,” Boris answered. “Capt. Patel won’t take evasive action even if Anevka orders him to—even if the castle could move that quickly. I don’t expect any trouble until we’re safely in the hangar.”

Gil took a deep breath and let it out again. “Not a demon,” he murmured to himself. “Just a clank. We can do this.”

“... Your Highness?”

“That recording. Did it show Agatha’s exorcism?”

“I—yes, I saw... something come out of the Lady Heterodyne.”

“Did you see it try to attack my father?”

“It... did something before the clank struck it. But how the clank itself moved so quickly....”

“The—the clank is just a shell. It’s being driven by an angel.”

There wasn’t much that could shock Boris into open-mouthed silence. That statement did so.

“Look, Boris, the Winchesters... their world is vastly different from anything we know. So I’m afraid you’ll have to pardon me being a bit off kilter as a result of working with them.”

“Are you certain they’re trustworthy?”

“They tried to save my father. They would have succeeded if he hadn’t forbidden them to let Gadreel heal him.”

Boris wearily scrubbed a hand over his face. “I suppose I have no choice but to trust your judgment.”

“Oh, don’t trust _just_ my judgment. Come see what they have in the back of the car.”

By the time they returned to the car, Sturmvoraus and Sam had finally coaxed Dean out of the front seat and were inspecting the arsenal. Dean looked up and saw them coming, reached back into the hidden compartment, and pulled something out. “Hey, Gil, catch,” he said and tossed a weapon to him.

Gil caught it easily and examined it—it was a gun, for sure, and the diameter of the side-by-side barrels suggested it was a shotgun. But the barrels were short, ending just past the end of the handguard, and the stock was shaped to fit comfortably in the hand rather than resting against the shoulder. “What is it?”

“Sawed-off shotgun.” Dean handed another to Sturmvoraus while Sam pulled a sword like Gadreel’s out of another section of the arsenal and hid it up his sleeve. “Shells are packed with rock salt—it’s a spirit deterrent. Aim for the head.”

“Will the salt have the velocity to pierce the metal?”

“Depends on how thick the metal is, but if it’s just possessed, we’ve got two options: salt and burn, or exorcise it and hit the spirit with the angel sword. Either way, we hit the head with enough salt, we’re halfway home.”

“And if nothing of Lucrezia’s spirit is there, or if the clank keeps going without her?”

Dean patted his handgun, and Sam hooked a blowtorch on one of his belt loops and closed the arsenal.

“Ah.”

“Erm,” said Sturmvoraus as the wasp eater woke up and scampered up to the top of his head. “Do we _have_ to destroy the head?”

Dean closed the luggage compartment lid with a slam. “You said that’s where the processor is.”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing. She probably _ordered_ the baron to use that stasis bomb on us. She dies. Now.”

“She also has all of Lucrezia’s memories. The version in Zola doesn’t, or at least Zola doesn’t have conscious access to all of them. If we hold her for interrogation—”

“We can get the information from the beacon engine if we have to,” Sam interrupted, his voice taking on a sparky edge. “We can find a way to analyze the data _safely_ without allowing a new version of Lucrezia to come to full awareness. But we can’t risk letting Anevka get away again.”

Sturmvoraus sighed unhappily. “You do have a point. I just... put so much work into the design, and now... to see it destroyed....”

“If we don’t destroy her, she’ll destroy Europa. Is that what you want?”

“... no.”

“Then help us clean up your mess.”

“This is _not_ my mess! This was _not my plan!_ ”

“ _You_ gave her that clank, dude. Like it or not, it _is_ your mess now. I may have let Lucifer out of his cage, but I put him back in. Lucrezia’s not even an archangel; she’s a digitized ghost with delusions of godhood.” Sam stepped into Sturmvoraus’ personal space, looming over him despite the relatively small difference between their heights. “Aim. For. The head.”

The wasp eater squeaked and cowered, and Sturmvoraus gulped and nodded.

“Good heavens,” Boris murmured to Gil. “You were right, sir.”

Gil allowed himself only the smallest of smirks.

“Sir!” called one of the crew. “Approaching Castle Wulfenbach; stand by to dock!”

“All right,” Dean rumbled. “Let’s do this.”

He and Sam went back to the front of the car and got in. Gil and Sturmvoraus did the same. The wasp eater, perhaps wisely, climbed off Sturmvoraus’ head and curled up in the space between the top of the back seat and the back windscreen. Moments later, the airship shuddered slightly as it set down in one of Castle Wulfenbach’s massive hangars. Dean started the car’s engine.

“Er, why are we doing this?” Sturmvoraus asked.

“Gotta make an entrance,” Dean replied, resting his hand on a knob on the front control panel. As soon as the ramp began to lower, he turned it with a flick of his wrist.

And music began blaring from speakers somewhere in the car—a harsh, electronic sound that might be some kind of guitar. And just about the time the ramp reached the hangar floor and Dean started moving the car forward, the guitar was joined by pounding bass, distorted organ, and driving drums.

Sturmvoraus might not understand Dean’s reasoning, but Gil certainly did. Not only would such an entrance make an impression on everyone in the hangar, but it also made _him_ feel ready for battle. Anevka-Lucrezia didn’t have a prayer.

Dean turned the car and drove toward the door leading to the castle’s interior, parking it in the center of the largest available clear space—well out of anyone’s way, but still making an obvious statement. Neither Gil nor Sturmvoraus needed any prompting to open their doors and get out at exactly the same time the Winchesters did, just as the voices that had joined the song crooned, “Smoke on the water, fire in the sky!”

Grantz, Father’s monster hunter who looked even bigger than Sam, was waiting at the door and immediately bowed slightly to Gil before taking a few steps forward to report. “Herr Baron, we’ve got squads searching all over the castle, but so far, nobody’s found Princess Anevka.”

“Well, of course not, darling,” said an electronic version of Agatha’s voice with Lucrezia’s inflections, and Gil looked over to see a female-shaped clank in the doorway, its white wig and white riding outfit matching its white skin. “I’m right here.”

Grantz snarled and lunged at Anevka. But the clank was stronger than it looked and easily hurled the hunter away... and Grantz landed with a sickening crunch on the front end of the car, shattering the windscreen and severely denting the metal. Swearing bitterly, Dean leveled his shotgun and fired six rounds at Anevka’s head, ignoring her screams and Sturmvoraus’ yelp of dismay.

Unfortunately, the commotion drew the attention of people out in the hall, some of whom came running with cries of, “My lady!”

“ **KILL THEM!** ” Anevka shrieked. “ **KILL THEM ALL!** ”

“SKREEEEEEEEE!” shrilled the wasp eater.

Wild-eyed, the revenants roared and charged toward Dean, who switched to his handgun to keep firing at Anevka. But Sam leveled his shotgun and fired at the first revenant, hitting the revenant’s chest and knocking him down.

“What—” Sturmvoraus began.

“Non-lethal!” Gil answered and followed Sam’s lead.

As Sturmvoraus joined them, Dean put one round through Anevka’s voice box, silencing her, and three more into her head. The third apparently hit something vital, as it caused a burst of electricity that crackled loudly enough to be heard over the gunfire. The clank’s body didn’t fall, but it did freeze. By that time, guards had arrived to subdue the revenants and take them into custody, and Boris started shouting orders for removal of the disabled clank.

Grantz stood with a grunt. “Sorry about your coach, Herr Baron.”

“It’s not mine,” Gil replied, “and it’s not your fault. Have it brought to the nearest empty lab; I’m sure Dean will want to repair it himself.”

“Very good, Herr Baron.” Grantz bowed and left to obey.

Sam came over to collect Gil’s shotgun and put it back in the arsenal, but Dean was despondently surveying the damage and swearing under his breath. As Sam opened the back, Dean opened the driver’s door, completely ignoring the wasp eater as it ran out and made a beeline for Sturmvoraus, and pulled a lever that caused the large panel at the front to open with a metallic groan.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Dean said, sounding almost tearful, and went back to inspect the damage more carefully.

Cautiously, mindful that Dean did seem to be a spark but might not be fully broken through, Gil walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve sent Grantz to set up a lab for you.”

Dean blinked and looked up at Gil. “Lab? I can—”

“It would give you the space to work in privacy, without interruptions.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Dean’s eyes dropped back to what looked like the ruined engine compartment, which was a mess of tangled wire and twisted metal.

“Hey,” Sam said, coming around the other side. “It’s just the front end. You’ve rebuilt her from the frame up twice before. You can fix her.”

“I know that, Sammy, but... but _here_....”

“Make a list of what you need,” said Gil. “Tools, parts, materials, everything. What we don’t have, we’ll find, and what we can’t find, we’ll make.”

Dean nodded slowly once, twice... and then the Spark took hold and he nodded again, more decisively. “Sam?”

Sam pulled a notebook out of his pocket and handed it over. Dean hurriedly scribbled a list and handed the notebook back to Sam and the list to Boris. He paced impatiently as members of the maintenance crew loaded the car onto a cart to transport it to the lab, then stalked after the cart as if... well, as if he were a hunter stalking prey. Fortunately, the lab wasn’t far, and the equipment Dean had requested was already arriving. As a result, he still retained enough self-control to thank the crew members as they unloaded the car and to pay attention as Gil showed him around the lab.

“Do you need anything else?” Gil asked as he finished the tour. “Can I have some food sent down to you or something?”

Dean was already starting to fixate on the car again, but he answered absently, “Uh... bacon cheeseburger, extra onions; a beer; and some cherry pie.” He took off his coat and laid it over the back of a nearby chair.

“What’s a cheeseburger?”

“I’ll explain,” Sam replied. “We should probably leave him to it.”

“Er, right. Okay.”

“Dean?”

Dean shook his head to break his focus and looked at Sam. “What?”

“Need my help?”

“Huh? Nah. You get some sleep. And don’t forget the pie.”

Sam huffed and smiled. “Sure. Good night.”

“Night, Sammy. And Gil? Thanks.”

Gil smiled. “You’re welcome. Sam? This way.”

As the door closed behind them, Gil heard Dean start singing quietly, “Hey, Jude, don’t make it bad....”

Sam looked wistful. “He definitely needs the pie, even if the cheeseburger can’t be done.”

Gil frowned. “How do you....”

“That song. Dean says Mom used to sing that to him instead of a lullaby.” Sam shook his head. “He’s more upset than I realized.”

“Your mother... died young?”

“Murdered.”

Boris cleared his throat. “Ah, Prince Tarvek, would you come with me to Operations? You may be able to assist....”

“Yes, of course,” Sturmvoraus replied. “Wulfenbach?”

“I’ll join you later,” Gil said. “I think I need some pie myself. You want any?”

“Ah, no, thank you. I... don’t seem to have much of an appetite.”

“All right. Keep an eye on him, Boris.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” Boris answered with a bow and escorted Sturmvoraus away.

“There are rumors about Prince Aaronev’s wife,” Gil explained as he led Sam toward the nearest kitchen. “It’s never been proven, but my father strongly suspected that Anevka killed her—before Sturmvoraus gave the clank to Lucrezia, I mean. I gather Anevka also killed Prince Aaronev. I haven’t tried to talk to Sturmvoraus about it, but I don’t know that he had much affection for either of his parents—not that I can blame him, knowing what I do about his family.”

Sam sighed. “Not sure if our story’s better or worse. Gadreel probably told you about the Apocalypse.”

“Briefly.”

“What he probably didn’t tell you was that a demon broke into my nursery the night I turned six months old. I’ll spare you the details, but he essentially cast a spell on me to prepare me to house Lucifer. Mom caught him, and he killed her—in front of Dad.”

Gil hissed in sympathy.

“That’s why Dad became a hunter. Raised us in the life. I hated it growing up, but... I dunno, I guess... as long as I’m doing it with Dean, it’s not so bad. I... kinda love it, really. Saving people, hunting things—the family business.”

“At least you _had_ your father,” Gil grumbled.

“How’s that?”

“My father... I guess he was trying to protect me, but he hid me for a long time. I didn’t even know he was my father until... well, you heard about the day Sturmvoraus and I broke into the records vault.”

“Yeah, you were talking about that—uh, earlier.” Sam clearly caught himself before he could say _on the way to your lab_. “So before that, you thought you were an orphan?”

“I didn’t know. Nobody knew, at least among the students on the castle. Everybody either picked on me or ignored me, except for Sturmvoraus.” Gil shook his head. “I thought he was my friend. Turns out, he was probably just using me.”

“I’ve had a couple of those.”

“Really? The demon girlfriend?”

Sam drew in a deep breath. “Yeah, her, and before that, my best friend at Stanford. He went off the rails our sophomore year... didn’t find out until the Apocalypse that that was when he’d been possessed. The demon introduced me to a girl I eventually decided to marry. And he killed her before I could propose.”

“Sweet lightning. And I thought my life was bad.”

“At least you know Agatha’s protected, and she can take care of herself.”

“As long as she listens to the right advisors, sure. It’s Sturmvoraus that has me worried.”

“She kissed you a lot longer than she kissed him.”

Gil felt his cheeks flush as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well... actually, I have an idea I’d like to discuss with you and Dean once things are a bit calmer. Since you’re not my vassals and you’re here to help Agatha, you might give me a better opinion than anyone else around here.”

Sam shrugged. “I dunno how much help we’ll be, but we’ll try.”

“Thanks.” Gil paused. “You don’t seem terribly worried by how Dean was reacting to the damage to the car.”

“Are you kidding? He’s always like that where the Impala’s hurt—er, damaged. You should have seen him when she was totaled the first time. Of course, that was right after Dad died, but still, we used to have to drag him away long enough to eat. Probably won’t be that bad this time, actually, since it’s just the front end.”

They arrived at the kitchen just then, and Gil was treated to a very entertaining half hour in which Sam tried to explain how to make the perfect bacon cheeseburger to a chef who was scandalized at the very idea of using ground beef for anything but sausage. Sam ate her first attempt and declared it passable; Gil ate her second attempt and understood why Dean liked these sandwiches so much; and she finished the third attempt just as the pie came out of the oven. So Gil ate his slice of pie on the way back to the lab, while Sam carried Dean’s tray (which included the rest of the pie) and told even more entertaining stories about meals on the road.

Dean, back in his other-world clothes, was so deep in his fugue state—reinstalling the rebuilt motor, evidently—that he didn’t even hear Sam and Gil come in. And the song he was singing, apparently off key, didn’t make any sense to Gil.

“Metallica, ‘Enter Sandman,’” Sam explained quietly, not that it helped. “Guess he’s doing better. Hey, Dean?” he called. “Food’s here. Gonna leave it on the workbench.”

“Pie?” Dean asked.

“Almost a whole one. Gil ate a piece.”

“Hell, ’s his house. Thanks, Sammy.” Dean started whistling something decidedly more cheerful.

Sam smiled and nodded toward the door, and Gil followed him out into the hall before leading him toward Operations.

“Now, you mentioned taking data from the beacon engine,” Gil asked as they went. “Is there a way to do that without... waking Lucrezia, for lack of a better term?”

“There should be, as long as I can access the base code without running the program. Sifting through the code to decipher actual memories as opposed to the consciousness simulation could take a while, though. I’ll probably have to have Dean build me a computer that can handle it. Wish I could call a couple of our friends,” Sam admitted with a rueful chuckle, “but one’s dead and the other’s in a universe even more different from ours than this one. But I’ll see what I can do.”

Gil studied Sam’s face for a moment. “Tell me something, Sam. How anxious are you to go back?”

Sam looked down briefly, then shook his head and met Gil’s eyes again. “I don’t know. I don’t know if we _can_. Time passes so differently there that if we’re here for more than a few days... we might be going back to a world we don’t even recognize.”

“Are you willing to risk that?”

“Gil, we’re here to help Agatha. We’re not leaving until we’re sure she doesn’t need our help anymore.”

“What about those you left behind?”

“Cas and Kevin are here. Charlie’s in Oz. Jody’s a friend, but she doesn’t _need_ us. And everyone else is dead.” Sam shrugged. “If we stay here, no one else there can get hurt on our account. I mean, yeah, there’s _stuff_ that I’ll miss, and we wouldn’t get to see our family again after death, but... we’ve _been_ to Heaven in our world. Best I can say about it is that it beats the alternatives—and we’ve seen those first hand, too.”

Gil blinked. “Even Purgatory?”

“Yeah, I spent a few hours there once. Dean was stuck there for a year.”

That must have been the time Sam had said he’d thought Dean was dead and hadn’t looked for him. Rather than ask to confirm his surmise, however, Gil went with, “So you think your world can get along without you for a while?”

“Every time we try dropping off the radar, something pulls us back. Maybe it’s time that world _has_ to get along without us.” Sam huffed. “I’m sure Death will be happy we’re not messing up the natural order anymore.”

“Death? As in....”

“The Horseman. Dean tried to get on his good side once by giving him fried pickle chips.”

“... Did it work?”

“Well, it might have, if we hadn’t had to bind him because we needed his help dealing with a rogue angel who’d declared himself God. That annoyed him. But we _did_ clean up as much of that mess as we could, so I think he still sort of likes us. Mostly. Or at least he likes Dean. Which is probably the weirdest thing I’ve admitted all day.”

On the off chance the rogue angel in question was Castiel, assuming Gadreel’s information was trustworthy and that there wasn’t some other rogue angel that had gone mad enough to cause problems that severe, Gil decided the best course of action was just to make a vague noise of agreement and stop asking questions. He knew his father’s tendency to jump to conclusions, especially where Agatha was concerned, and that wasn’t a mistake he wanted to repeat from the opposite perspective.

Sam gave him a sidelong look. “Look, I dunno what Gadreel told you about Cas. If he said Cas went off the deep end, it’s true. But he came back, as much as anyone can come back from making that kind of mistake. He’s still Dean’s best friend. He’s human since another angel stole his grace. And if we thought he would make trouble for Agatha, we’d have shipped him back to our dimension right away.”

Gil returned the look. “You don’t read minds, do you?”

Sam snorted. “Hell, no. Who would want to?”

Gil couldn’t help smiling at that. “But did Death like the pickle chips?”

“Actually, yeah. He even said so, after he threatened to kill us if we tried to bind him again.”

“That... actually sounds like Castle Heterodyne.”

Sam chuckled.

By the time they got to Operations, the combined Wulfenbach forces, joined (to the surprise of the whole High Command except Boris) by the Jägers, had pushed the army of revenants several kilometers back toward Sturmhalten. But Sturmvoraus was practically asleep on his feet, and Boris insisted that the Deep Thinkers had the situation well enough in hand that Gil wasn’t needed to oversee everything personally. So Sam and Gil carted Sturmvoraus off to Gil’s quarters and put him to sleep on the bed that had belonged to Gil’s valet, Ardsley Wooster, who also happened to be a British agent. Sam, waving off Gil’s objections, made himself a pallet on the floor, leaving Gil what might be his last chance to sleep in his own bed. Gil gave Zoing strict instructions to wake him at daybreak and let himself fully relax for the first time in months.

Morning came too early, of course, but Gil decided to let the others sleep and went to check on Dean after breakfast. He could hear music playing when he got to the door, and the tray Sam had brought the night before was outside; both the cheeseburger and the pie had been devoured. But Gil’s knock went unanswered—until the music changed to a very clear “Walk right in, sit right down, / Daddy, let your mind roll on!”

The volume turned down as Gil let himself into the lab, but Dean wasn’t visible from the door. “Dean?” Gil called.

There was a brief hiss of static, and then a voice that wasn’t Dean’s sang, “Hey, Jude, don’t make it bad....”

Cautiously, Gil approached the car, which looked fully repaired and still smelled of fresh paint, and found Dean sound asleep on the front seat. “Ah,” he whispered. Then he looked toward the dial Dean had turned the night before to start the music. “And you are....”

Static again, then a bell rang, after which a male voice said, “ _He_ llo, _baby_!”

“Baby. Right. Hi. And Dean’s finished repairing you?”

“Hey hey hey hey, / Hey hey hey hey, / Well, I’m back in black, / Yes, I’m back in black!”

“I thought Sam called you _her_.”

“She was a long cool woman in a black dress, / Just a smile and a beautiful song....”

“Ah, so... this music is your voice.”

“She’s got it, / Yeah, baby, she’s got it!”

“Fascinating!”

A longer burst of static was followed by a female voice singing, “Nothing you can say can tear me away from my guy, / Nothing you can do, ’cause I’m stuck like glue to my guy.”

Gil chuckled in spite of himself. “No, no, I’ll just ask for plans when he wakes up. For now, let’s let him sleep. All right?”

“Don’t you worry ’bout a thing!”

He chuckled again. “Deal. Nice to meet you, Baby.”

That was answered with an almost cheeky-sounding, “You say goodbye, and I say hello!”

Even though he held no illusion that the rest of the day would be as cheerful, he left the lab smiling.


	6. The Angel and the Cathedral

Castiel woke slowly to early morning sun streaming through his window and birds singing merrily outside. It took him a moment to place the musty, dusty, faintly metallic tinge to the air as belonging to Castle Heterodyne—those were scents never present in the bunker, which smelled primarily of old books and leather, and the Gas-’n’-Sip storeroom, where he’d stayed during his brief tenure as “Steve” the attendant, had only reeked of cigarette smoke and gasoline fumes. It had been mid-morning in Lebanon when he accompanied Kevin through the portal to the cathedral, so even though Lady Heterodyne had insisted that they spend the night in the castle, Castiel hadn’t expected to sleep much at all. Evidently the effects of the anti-wasp potion had taken a greater toll than he’d thought.

“Ah, good morning, Master Castiel!” boomed the castle’s artificial intelligence as he sat up. It wasn’t speaking English, yet somehow he understood as if it were... as had been the case the night before with everyone except Kevin and the Winchesters, who appeared not even to notice that they weren’t actually hearing English. Perhaps it was part of the magic, or science, of the portal. Not that any human language normally posed a barrier to an angel’s understanding, but it was odd to experience as a human. “You’re up early,” the castle continued.

Castiel frowned and looked at the window. “What time is it?”

“It’s just gone 5:00. The mistress is still asleep, but I could wake one of her minions for you if you require breakfast.”

“Ah, no, thank you. I’m quite all right.”

“Indeed, most everyone appears to be asleep still. Your young friend is awake, but—heh heh—he seems to be too afraid to get out of bed.”

“I can’t imagine why,” he said dryly.

“The mistress’ Jägers are on watch,” the castle went on as if Castiel hadn’t spoken. “And of course, _I_ never sleep.”

“Then you know, I take it, how matters stand on the Sturmhalten road?”

“... Ah. Well, unfortunately, my sensors reach no further than the pass, and the last of the Wulfenbach troops left that area some hours ago. However, the Jägers may know more.”

“I see. And Castle Wulfenbach itself?”

“Is also no longer in the airspace I monitor. But before it left, I did sense a smaller airship meeting it from the direction of Sturmhalten, so we may assume that the mistress’ consorts and your friends have indeed reached it.”

“Thank you. You will keep an eye out for them?”

“Well, of _course_.” The castle sounded mildly offended. “The mistress needs her consorts, after all.” It paused before adding in a tone that could be either mischievous or malicious, “ _You_ , on the other hand....”

“Distinctly heard your mistress order you yesterday to keep Kevin and me safe and unharmed. And she would be most displeased if you disobeyed her in any way, including attempting to find a loophole in her words.”

“Hmph. You’re no fun.”

“I happen to have worked with the King of Hell long enough to be cautious, that’s all.”

“—The King of _Hell?_ ” It seemed to be recalculating its opinion. “In what capacity, pray tell?”

“Have you heard the old Arab saying, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

“Ah. An alliance of convenience.”

“If you like.”

“And does that describe your view of the Lady Heterodyne?”

“Of course not. The Lady Heterodyne is a good-hearted lady who needs all the friends she can get. My friends and I are here to help her.”

“And to get her help in your own war?”

“Our war,” Castiel said archly, “is none of her concern, and Lord willing, it will _stay_ that way. We have no intention of allowing our problems to follow us here.”

“Ah, but you brought a number of them with you. Those stone tablets Master Tran has hidden in his room, for instance—don’t think I didn’t notice. But,” the castle added more cheerfully, “any man who can conduct an alliance of convenience with the King of Hell and live to tell the tale is quite welcome here. Would you like a tour of the dungeons?”

“ _No_. I would like to be left in peace to dress.”

“Oh, very well. There may be something suitable in the wardrobe.”

But the wardrobe, it turned out, was infested with large, colorful spiders, all of which caught sight of Castiel at once and let out a hungry-sounding chorus of “NYAR!” The castle had to crush the whole thing before any of the spiders could jump him. So with a sigh, Castiel unpacked an outfit of Dean’s from the bag Kevin had sensibly insisted that he bring. After dressing, he shaved at the dry sink, feeling an odd tingle from the water when he washed his face afterward, and headed out to face the day.

Several doors down the hall, outside Lady Heterodyne’s room, he found three Jägers playing poker—well, as best they could given that one of them was missing his left arm. They introduced themselves as Maxim, Oggie, and Dimo, and while they hesitated to give Castiel any specific information before talking to Lady Heterodyne, they did confirm that the Impala had been picked up by a Wulfenbach airship and taken safely to Castle Wulfenbach. Then, when Castiel mentioned wanting to go for a walk in the town, Maxim offered to escort him at least as far as the causeway. Castiel accepted, and off they went.

“Zo hyu iz friends vit der Vinchesters, hey?” Maxim asked with a fanged smile that was surprisingly good-natured even on his slender purple-skinned face. “Hy hear dey fight goot.”

“I missed the battle,” Castiel confessed, “but yes, they are good fighters.”

“Iz dey soldiers?”

“No, only hunters. They were trained by their father, though, and he was a United States Marine.”

“Ho! Neffer fought dose guys. Hy vos a cafalry offizier before Hy took de Jägerbräu.”

“You wouldn’t have, unless your world’s history is very different from ours. The United States hasn’t had cause to enter a European war.”

“Vait, hyu dun mean Hamereeka.”

“I do.”

“Master Bill und Master Barry vent to Hamereeka von time! Dot vos ven dey met de sparky lady, Thunderink Engine Voman—hyu know her?”

“Er, no, I’m afraid not.”

“Ho yah, she vos de great-great...” Maxim paused to count on his fingers. “Vell, anyvay, von of her ancestors vos der Chief Pontiac.”[1]

Castiel blinked. “You met the lady?”

“Yah, she come beck vit Master Bill und Master Barry for a vile. Vos very interestink, but her Cherman vosn’t zo goot.”

“No, I suppose not.” The fact that Castiel was still hearing what might have been German—probably an old obscure dialect—as accented English had neither escaped him nor grown less odd. He wasn’t even sure which language he was speaking himself, though no one seemed to have any trouble understanding him.

Maxim continued chattering companionably at Castiel until they reached the gate, at which point Castiel politely declined his offer of a tour of the town and made his getaway. He was grateful for Maxim’s friendliness, of course, but he really needed to regain his equilibrium on his own terms. And that included a break from whatever this strange language phenomenon was.

Despite the lingering sense that great evil had been done in this town, still clear to him even in his current diminished state, Castiel found the early morning quiet to be remarkably peaceful. He walked slowly, relishing the cool mountain air and the gentle glow imparted to the town by the combination of sunlight and river fog. Most people were evidently still asleep, but here and there he caught the scent of a cooking fire and occasionally of coffee, bacon, or sausage. Such experiences made the loss of his grace easier to bear. He’d had tastes of them before, of course, when his grace was slowly fading during the Apocalypse, but he didn’t think he’d appreciated them quite so much at the time.

Eventually he wandered out of a side street into the cathedral square. He’d heard rumblings about the structure’s past, but it seemed Bill Heterodyne had taken a page from the life of King Josiah and rededicated it to the worship of the true God. And though Castiel had been badly disillusioned about his own Father... well, he _had_ been an angel and now felt drawn to go inside and pray. Once inside, he found he was not alone; a young man with straight black hair and side whiskers was sitting three pews from the back on the left side, and a scantily-clad young lady with long green hair was sitting on the front pew as if keeping watch over the two coffins—one open, one closed—resting in front of her in the crossing. Castiel slipped into the back pew, knelt, and tried to find the right words to pray.

Then he had to firmly squash the part of his mind that immediately brought up the second verse of “California Dreamin’.” He’d been around Dean too long.

 _Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name_ , he finally began, but paused. _Well, You may not be_ my _Father, but I suspect You already knew that. Just... help, please. I don’t know where I’m needed, what I ought to do, whether I even ought to remain here. Where will I do the most good, especially like... like_ this _?_

The green-haired girl sniffled. Castiel looked up and realized she was looking at the baron’s casket.

Well, here was a place to start. He got up and walked over to her. “Forgive me, ma’am,” he whispered, “but would you care for some company?”

She shrugged a little. But as he sat down beside her, she looked at him more closely. “You’re not from Mechanicsburg,” she noted, and he detected an accent in her speech that he couldn’t place. “You’re dressed like Dean.”

“Very like,” he admitted ruefully. “I had to borrow these clothes from him. Sam’s wouldn’t fit me.”

“So you’re friends? From... from America?”

He nodded. “Castiel.”

“Zeetha, daughter of—” Her voice caught, and she stifled a sob. “No. No, I can’t say it that way anymore, even as a joke. I am Zeetha, daughter of _Klaus_ , Royal Princess Guardian of Skifander.”

His question about what or where Skifander might be was forestalled by the sudden realization of why ‘Klaus’ would be significant. He looked at the baron’s casket and back at her. “He was your father?”

She nodded. “He left when I was only a month old. I never even knew his right name until we got here.”

“What had he called himself?”

“Chump,” came the sobbed answer. “I don’t... I guess he didn’t know enough Skiff, or whoever found him heard him talking to himself or something. And now I can’t even ask him!”

“You’re sure, though?”

She sniffled and nodded again. “When we met in Sturmhalten, he spoke Skiff. He choked suddenly—I guess Lucrezia did something to him—but he’d started to say something about my mother. And... and Gil... he looks like me, and the baron thought I’d been sent to kill him, probably for being my twin, and he... Gil said his father t-taught him... some techniques that are... well, they’re ancient Skifandrian warrior disciplines. Mother said... Chump would be the only person in... in Europa who would know those things. He was her _zumil_.” The tears she’d been fighting finally began to flow. “And now I’m still trapped in Europa and my father is _gone!_ ”

He pulled her into a hug and let her cry herself out on his shoulder. She started shivering as her tears subsided, and he wished he’d brought a jacket to lend her; the cathedral really was quite cool, and the dress she was wearing looked like it had been borrowed from a barmaid.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She sniffled and sat back with a bit of a laugh. “Guess you know what it’s like to be stranded in a strange place, huh?”

“We may have stranded ourselves this time, but yes. I do. And my... Father disappeared many years ago. He’s not dead, but....”

“Have... did you look for him?”

He nodded. “He doesn’t want to be found. Not even if it would save the world.”

“Oh. Man. That’s rough. Mother?”

“Never had one. I... _used_ to be an angel.”

“Oh. Oh, _wow_. What happened?”

“My grace was stolen. Now I’m human.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

They sat together in companionable silence for a while, she looking at the coffin and he studying the architecture.

Then she sighed. “Guess I should get back before Mamma Gkika comes looking for me.” She put a hand to her chest and winced.

“Are you ill?”

“Got stabbed. I’ll be all right. It’s mostly healed.” She stood but paused and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“For listening. And for reminding me that there’s always someone who’s got it worse somehow.” She kissed his cheek and left.

Well, there was that. The town had taken a terrible beating the day before. Perhaps he should go and see if there were anything he could do to help the injured or contribute to the rebuilding.

The dark-haired young man had his head in his hands as Castiel passed, but his body language was very much like Dean’s when he wanted to be left alone, so Castiel kept walking. As he slipped out the door, however, he was surprised by the silhouette of a taller man hesitating at the edge of the portal, studying the gruesome sculptures. His dress was that of a local man, but as Castiel drew closer, he could make out the man’s face—brown hair, grey eyes, and light skin, but the hooked nose and other features of one of America’s native peoples.

Then the man startled suddenly. “Castiel!”

Castiel blinked. “You have the advantage of me... brother. I don’t recognize you.”

“N-no, you would—” The man—the angel?—paused and seemed to come to a sudden decision. “Come,” he said, turning to usher Castiel down the steps. “It would perhaps be better to talk elsewhere. You wish to see the hospital, I think. And the Lady Heterodyne will want a report of our progress when she wakes.”

“You have made your own vessel?” Castiel asked, following cautiously.

“Yes. The DuMedds made me a clank, but it proved too unwieldy. Working among the wounded required greater dexterity and maneuverability. This guise was that of my last vessel but one.”

Castiel frowned. “Why a clank?”

“My last vessel was... no longer available, and I was not yet healed enough to make my own.”

“But you are so healed now.”

The other angel gave Castiel a worried look. “Yes, but I do not recommend the method to you. Without your grace, it could well kill you. However,” he added with a glance at Castiel’s injured wrist, “I can do this much for you.” He touched Castiel’s shoulder, and the pain fled.

Castiel flexed his fingers experimentally, but since he had no place to put the air cast, he left it on. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” the other angel replied with a small smile, though he still looked worried and his brisk pace indicated nervousness. “Have you your blade?”

“What? Uh, no. I believe I left it at the castle.”

The other angel’s face cleared a bit more. “You should have no need of it. The town is very secure.” As they hurried toward the hospital, he pointed out places where the castle had already made significant repairs to houses and shops, as well as the inn where most of the asylum-seekers had been temporarily housed. “Many of the sparks are beyond my aid, I fear,” he noted sadly. “They have chosen the path of madness and domination. They are under Lady Agatha’s protection, but....”

“Asylum has more than one meaning, brother.”

“You think she would consider that?”

“I’ll suggest it to her. She could present it as being for their benefit—the Agatha Heterodyne Home for Troubled Sparks or some such.”

“Ha! And perhaps some kind of _virtual_ laboratory, where they can do no harm.”

“Would that Gabriel were here.”

“Yes, he would enjoy designing such a thing.”

They arrived then at an open field, full of tents, that appeared to be the grounds of the ruined hospital. The other angel showed Castiel through the guarded area where captured troops were being housed and treated, the triage tents and temporary operating theaters, and the tents housing the wounded and ill.

“There is still much to do, as you can see,” he concluded as they left the last tent. “Dr. Sun has had me treating those nearest death and those who cannot be saved with the medicine now available here. But it is... taxing, to do such work while still under Metatron’s curse.”

“That’s why you went to the cathedral,” Castiel realized. “To seek rest.”

The other angel shot him an unreadable look. “You... understand.”

“I do. In fact, I’m amazed that you’ve been able to heal so many. When I... during the Apocalypse, when I was cut off from the Host, I couldn’t even heal Bobby Singer’s legs.”

“It hardly feels like enough.”

They were, at this point, in an open area that appeared to be out of earshot of other humans, so Castiel stopped. “Who are you?”

The other angel looked—no, not just worried, _afraid_. “Please... do not kill me, brother. The stories about me, they are not true.”

Puzzle pieces started slotting into place. “You came here with Sam and Dean.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not Ezekiel. I can’t see your true face, but I knew his vessel.”

“No. I have now told the Winchesters the full truth.”

“You’re seeking atonement for a failure.”

“Of the gravest order. I am Gadreel.”

Castiel stared. “ _You—_ ”

“Gadreel!” someone called from one of the tents. “We need help—he’s crashing!”

“Forgive me,” Gadreel said hurriedly and flew off.

Castiel was still staring after him in shock when another voice said, “Ah, Master Castiel, is it?”

Castiel turned to see an older Chinese man in a lab coat walking toward him with a clipboard. “Yes, sir.”

“Dr. Sun Jen-djieh, at your service.” They bowed to each other and shook hands, and he continued, “I see you know Gadreel.”

“Er, yes.”

“He’s been a very great help, I must say. Saved at least two hundred lives last night. And young von Mekkhan tells me he actually ejected the slaver wasp from the baron.” Dr. Sun shook his head. “Pity Klaus wouldn’t let Gadreel do anything about the neurotoxin the wasp released.”

Castiel was still too deeply shocked to think of anything more to say than, “He was among Our Father’s most trusted angels once.”

“I can see why.” After a pause, Dr. Sun cleared his throat. “Well, if you are headed back to the castle, would you be good enough to take this report to Her Ladyship?”

Castiel shook himself and drew a deep breath. “Yes, certainly.”

Dr. Sun took a folder off the clipboard and handed it to Castiel, then shook hands again and took his leave. But Castiel stayed where he was, still trying to reconcile the rumors of Gadreel’s treason with his willingness to drop everything to save dying humans.

“You would think I’d be used to unexpected things happening in Mechanicsburg by now,” said another unfamiliar voice—in English, with a crisp British accent. Castiel turned to find that it belonged to the young man from the cathedral. “Perhaps I never shall be.”

Castiel smiled a little. “Well, to be fair, this one didn’t come from Mechanicsburg.”

“So I gather.” The young man offered his hand. “Ardsley Wooster, British Intelligence.”

“You followed us,” Castiel surmised, shaking hands.

“Well, I could hardly help overhearing your conversation with Princess Zeetha, and I _am_ a spy—albeit somewhat in disgrace at the moment.”

“So that was why you were in the cathedral.”

Mr. Wooster hesitated. “Would you join me for breakfast, Master Castiel?”

“I’d be glad to.”

As they walked to a café that was just opening for business, Mr. Wooster explained how he had met the current Baron Wulfenbach in Paris, become his valet, and enjoyed his job tremendously until Wulfenbach revealed that he’d known all along that Mr. Wooster was a spy. Then had come the problem of getting Lady Heterodyne out of Sturmhalten, failing to convince her to go to England, and aiding her as much as possible both by escorting her to Mechanicsburg and by delivering messages from von Mekkhan to the Jäger generals.

“I had intended to make my escape then,” he continued after the waitress took their order. “But I was still reporting to my contact when word came that the baron and Martellus von Blitzengaard had been killed and that Lady Heterodyne had defeated the baron’s forces. Elements of the report were... less than fully credible, but such rumors have the potential to destabilize the situation even further and prompt more rebellions across Europa, especially as Master Gil is as yet untested and neither he nor Lady Heterodyne has yet been acknowledged in the wider world. My superiors were furious with me for being exposed and sent me back here, and I quote, to ‘ensure that nothing else goes wrong.’”

Castiel huffed. “No doubt they chastised you for growing too close to your charges.”

Mr. Wooster blinked. “How on earth did you know that?”

“Because it happened to me. Dean had his own ideas of how to stop Lilith from starting the Apocalypse, and when I came too close to helping him succeed, my superiors claimed my loyalties had grown confused and... reeducated me.”

“I say! What rotten luck.”

“Yes, well, it didn’t stick, but I’m afraid I did some unforgivable things as a result. By the time Dean convinced me of my error, it was too late. Sam had already fallen into Lilith’s trap and freed Lucifer.”

“But... I thought you said you were an angel.”

“I was. In Our Father’s absence, my superiors had forgotten their true mission.”

“Great _Scott_....”

The food arrived just then, and they ate in silence for a while.

But Mr. Wooster eventually paused and said slowly, “Perhaps we can be of service to each other, Master Castiel.”

“I’m not a terribly good spy, Mr. Wooster,” Castiel replied. “And I have no intention of betraying my friends.”

“No more do I. I am quite fond of Master Gil and Lady Heterodyne, and... my sources tell me your friends helped remove The Other from Lady Heterodyne’s mind.”

“They did, yes.”

“I need some way to prove that to my superiors. Help me get it, and I shall provide all of you with identity papers to prove that you and your friends are private American citizens, traveling in Europa of your own accord—enough documentation to stand up to the scrutiny of any foreign government, including my own. Even if you all remain in Europa, there will be spies here and aboard Castle Wulfenbach who _will_ ask questions.”

Castiel thought for a moment, then closed his eyes. “Gadreel? When you have a moment, I need your assistance. I am at the café three blocks from the hospital—and unarmed.” He opened his eyes and explained, “He may be busy.”

“Why did you mention where you are?”

“In our world, there were many angels who were angry with me, not knowing that Metatron had tricked me into aiding him with the spell to cast us all down. I have a warding tattoo that hides me from angelic senses.”

A flutter of wings announced Gadreel’s arrival, making Mr. Wooster jump. “What is it, brother?” Gadreel asked warily.

“Lady Heterodyne said something about sending a recording of Baron Wulfenbach’s last speech with the new baron and Prince Tarvek,” Castiel began. “Was it you who made that recording?”

“Er, yes.”

“Did it include the exorcism?”

“It did.”

Castiel gestured across the table to Mr. Wooster, who was still staring at Gadreel in shock. “Mr. Wooster needs a copy. He’s with British Intelligence.”

“To prove Lady Heterodyne’s innocence,” Mr. Wooster recovered enough to add when Gadreel gave him a puzzled frown.

Gadreel considered, vanished briefly, and returned with a brass sphere that he handed to Mr. Wooster. “This clank is a projector,” he explained. “Point the small circle toward a screen and press the red button to play.”

“I _say_ ,” Mr. Wooster breathed. “Thanks awfully. Do sit down, would you? We’ve your cover story to sort out yet—new identity papers, I mean.”

“I may be called away at any time,” Gadreel warned as he pulled up a chair.

“I quite understand.”

“This story may be difficult to devise. We are from another time as well as another world.”

“Let’s start,” Castiel suggested, “with surnames. Winchester, do you think?”

Gadreel looked uncomfortable. “For you, perhaps. I will take Haggerty.”

Mr. Wooster had a notepad out and jotted that down. “Ages?”

“Sam is 32,” Castiel replied. “Dean is 36. Kevin Tran is 18. I am... 41, and Gadreel....”

“This vessel was 40,” Gadreel stated.

Mr. Wooster hesitated a second before shaking his head and writing down that age. “I suppose it might be best to say that you’re all members of some kind of secret society.”

“Oh, but we are.”

Mr. Wooster looked at him in surprise. “You are?”

Gadreel smiled and looked at Castiel, who smiled back and said, “We’re Men of Letters.”

* * *

[1] This is one of the few details I’ll come right out and claim as being 100% personal headcanon. (In case you don’t get the joke: Pontiac was an Ottawa chief who helped lead an anti-British uprising around Fort Detroit in the 1760s; in the 1920s, Detroit-based General Motors, which by then also included Chevrolet, launched a new car brand with the Pontiac Chief. GM discontinued the Pontiac brand in 2010.)


	7. MacArthur Park Is Melting in the Dark

Tarvek found himself being tickled awake by whiskers. He peeled open his eyes to find his vision filled with a grey, furry face as a cold, rubbery nose mashed against his.

“Dook,” said the wasp eater.

“Thank you,” Tarvek rasped groggily. “I don’t suppose you could go for coffee?”

“Snurf.”

“Didn’t think so.” He closed his eyes.

“Snee?”

“No.” He rolled onto his side.

It stuck its nose in his ear and huffed.

“Oh, all _right_.” He sat up with a groan. “I suppose Wulfenbach put you up to this.”

The wasp eater chuckled and scampered down to pounce on what looked at first like a lump of blankets on the floor between the bed and the door but turned out, once Tarvek had his specs on, to be Winchester Minor, sound asleep on his stomach and completely oblivious to the weasel dancing around on his broad back with a noise that sounded almost like _botherbotherbotherbother_. What on earth was he doing down there? He hadn’t even dressed for bed—of course, no more had Tarvek, but he at least had the excuse of not having brought any luggage. He was reasonably sure there had been a bag or two in the back of the horseless carriage Winchester Major was repairing. Yet here was Winchester Minor still in his denim trousers and undershirt.

Tarvek’s head still felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool, and he realized it had been a week or more since he’d actually gotten a decent night’s sleep—a good two days since the Si Vales Valeo, before which he’d been (in reverse order) deathly ill, badly wounded, and running ragged trying to keep up with Lucrezia, Agatha, and Anevka. One night’s rest wasn’t enough to undo that. But since the wasp eater clearly thought that stupid o’clock was time to get up, he had no hope of being allowed to get back to sleep. Groaning again, he got up and investigated the room. He wouldn’t be able to get past Winchester to get out, but there was a gas ring in one corner with a kettle and other tea-making supplies, all apparently imported from England. This must have been Wooster’s room, then—yes, there were two doors, one of which must communicate with Wulfenbach’s quarters. He’d been too far gone last night to notice. Ah, well, caffeine was caffeine. Tarvek filled the kettle, fired up the gas ring, and started tea.

Unfortunately, that drew the attention of the wasp eater, which scurried up his leg to look over his shoulder, then leapt onto the shelves to investigate every box and tin in search of a treat. He tried without success to get it down, but it did catch a rust spider and crunched its prey happily. Not finding much in the way of people food, Tarvek decided to settle for some dry biscuits to go with his tea. He also located a notepad (new, or at least any pages with indentations had been removed—good spy, Wooster) and pencil, and a few minutes later, he was settled with tea and biscuits and was attempting to write a to-do list. The wasp eater, meanwhile, had returned to the project of waking Winchester and was snuffling its way up his neck, nose buried in the curling ends of his collar-length brown hair. Eventually it tickled its nose too much and sneezed violently directly into Winchester’s hair, then wiped its nose on his scalp. [1]

“Cuddidou’, D’n,” Winchester mumbled into his pillow without actually waking up.

What _was_ Winchester doing on the floor, anyway, and dressed so shabbily when a spark of his caliber should be well settled with either ancestral lands or a high position in the household of a lord? Granted, things were probably different in America, but even Wulfenbach dressed his lackeys better than that. Tarvek himself was going to need new clothes to get by until they could retake Sturmhalten—he quickly sketched a couple of suits to order from the on-board tailor; he was not about to borrow from Wulfenbach, for all they were the same size. But there wouldn’t be many humans aboard from whom Winchester could borrow even if he were willing, and having any of the late baron’s clothes cut down... oh, no, that would never do. Those styles were almost as old as the baron himself. Still, a spark in Agatha’s service couldn’t be allowed to dress so poorly or so strangely, never mind the risk that the rest of Winchester’s shirts would be as eye-watering as that horrid brown-and-blue plaid he’d worn the day before. The lines of the shirt hadn’t been bad, as the way the yoke curved to points looked very American, but since that would be obscured by the waistcoat, perhaps the frock coat ought... hm.... Tarvek sent the pencil lead sweeping across a fresh page, settling what the overall look should be before producing separate sketches of the various pieces and a list of colors and fabrics. He’d need to call the cordwainer, too, as the boots both brothers wore might be practical only for a mechanic or farm laborer, and Winchester Minor needed a proper gun belt. Yet what Winchester Major had been wearing the previous night had suited him well enough, with the notched-collar waistcoat and band-collared shirt, though perhaps a frock coat like Winchester Minor’s might not go amiss, and brighter colors than the sepia palette... maybe a good forest green shirt with a cream trilobite-jacquard waistcoat....

He was still sketching when there was a quiet knock and the side door opened—and Winchester Minor was instantly awake, sitting up, and aiming his gun at Wulfenbach’s nose.

“Whoa!” yelped Wulfenbach, falling back a step. “Sam, it’s me!”

Winchester sighed wearily, relaxed, and lowered his gun. “Sorry, dude.”

“How did you...” Tarvek began but backtracked. “I barely saw you _move!_ ”

Winchester snorted. “Old habit. In our line of work, you get used to things tryin’ to break in and kill you. ’Course, it’s not much defense if another hunter comes after you and manages to steal your gun before making any sort of noise that could wake you.”

“I... don’t suppose you survived that one?” Wulfenbach asked.

Winchester chuckled. “Nope. That’s the time we _remember_ having gone to Heaven. Angels made sure of it. But hell, you’re not a hunter until you’ve died once.”

Tarvek’s mouth fell open. He covered by asking, “This is probably a ridiculous question, but how many times _have_ you died?”

“Me?” Winchester thought a moment. “Five, I think? Dean’s died over a hundred times, if you count the run-in with the Trickster. Even Cas has died three times. And that’s not counting the last-second healings.”

“Sweet lightning.”

“Yeah. Like I told Gil last night, Death’s probably glad to be rid of us.”

Wulfenbach took a deep breath and said, “Right. I don’t know what you and Dean are used to having for breakfast....”

“Cereal or grapefruit for me, usually,” Winchester replied. “Eggs or pancakes sometimes—depends on where we’re eating. Dean will eat anything that’s not a salad, but he usually wants some kind of meat, like bacon or sausage.”

“Ah, good. I’ve ordered a full breakfast sent up for us; there should be enough variety for you, and we can take Dean a tray from what’s left when we’ve finished. I found him asleep in the lab.”

“Guess he’ll still be working on the car today.”

“Oh, no. He’s finished.”

Winchester’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? _Huh_.”

Tarvek frowned. “I thought you knew he was a spark.”

Winchester turned to stare at Tarvek with nearly neck-breaking speed. “He’s _what?!_ ”

Wulfenbach rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah, you were asleep when Theo explained. The Spark is a particular kind of combination of intellectual gifts and abilities, and people who have the Spark are generally called sparks. You’ve already met several—me, Agatha, Sturmvoraus, Theo. And we all have our specialties. Dean’s is clearly mechanical engineering. I’m guessing yours is something to do with the science of information.”

“ _My_ —”

“I concur,” interrupted Tarvek before Winchester could object that he wasn’t a spark. “When we arrived last night, you hadn’t even seen Anevka to know anything about her design, yet you sounded like you knew exactly how to retrieve data from both her and the beacon eng— _oh_. Red fire, I forgot. The beacon engine’s not in Sturmhalten Castle anymore. The Geisterdamen took all the equipment with them when they left, burned all their papers, and collapsed the tunnels behind them.”

“WHAT?!” Wulfenbach exploded. “Where were they going?”

“I’m not sure. Lucrezia didn’t trust me _that_ much, and neither did the Geisters. I wouldn’t have found out that they planned to burn down the chapel dedicated to Lucrezia if I hadn’t been talking to Vrin when she gave the order to set the fire.”

“A _chapel?!_ ” Wulfenbach and Winchester chorused.

“Er, yes. The Geisters consider Lucrezia their mother goddess and Agatha her holy child.”

Winchester frowned. “These Geisterdamen. How many of them are there?”

“I... I’m not sure. The White Elite alone number three thousand. Why?”

“Because belief can have incredible power—and _give_ incredible power. In our world, the strength of the pagan gods depended on the number of worshippers they had. And we once had a case where enough people believed a house was haunted that they _made_ it haunted by a Tibetan thought form called a tulpa. If Lucrezia found some way for her soul to absorb the power offered by the Geisters’ faith, that could be what made her The Other... and it could make defeating her more difficult than we thought.”

“B-but Geisters are revenants! Lucrezia probably ordered them to believe in her!”

“And that changes anything _how_? Look, I know I don’t know much about the situation, but it sounds like Lucrezia was able to upload herself into the beacon engine, mind and soul. That’s not a typical haunting. She shouldn’t have been able to choose the object to which her ghost was tied. That alone suggests that the Geisters’ faith has some effect.”

“And the same could be true of the other revenants,” Wulfenbach added, “the humans with no symptoms. If Lucrezia ordered them to worship her, could they resist?”

Tarvek’s heart sank. “No. I mean, it is _possible_ for a revenant to shake off Lucrezia’s control of his own accord—Von Pinn did it, and from what Zola said, a few of the Geisters were able to—but it would take an incredibly strong mind. Vrin, the high priestess, could resist Anevka but had trouble resisting Agatha. Your father might have managed it eventually.”

Wulfenbach held up Tarvek’s notebook. “You’ve got a formula in here that should break the mental control without causing the wasp to release the neurotoxin that killed my father.”

“Should, yes, not that I knew about the neurotoxin, but I’ve had no way to test that formula. If Winchester hadn’t shot out Anevka’s voice box, we could use that, but... huh. I might be able to rebuild it. Of course, my oscilloscope readings of Agatha’s voice are still in Sturmhalten, but....”

“Might be faster to e—” Winchester caught himself and corrected, “I mean, send Agatha a message and ask her to come in person, or send a recording.”

“Recording,” Wulfenbach agreed. “We shouldn’t take her away from rebuilding Mechanicsburg just for that.”

Tarvek nodded thoughtfully. “That ought to be enough for the average revenant. But if the formula works, the next problem will be delivery.”

“Gas.”

“Or aerosol,” suggested Winchester, “if it has to remain in liquid form. Hell, you could even rig up some kind of crop duster spray if you had to—uh, a heavy mist sprayed from the back of a low-flying airplane.”

Wulfenbach tapped the notebook against his chin as he considered. “Wish I knew where Wooster left my flyer. I suppose I can get Dean to help me build a new one while you two sort out the spray.”

Breakfast arrived just then, and Tarvek sent the Lackya who brought it to the tailor with his sketches. As they ate, Wulfenbach got Winchester telling stories that were both amusing and sad, revealing as they did that the brothers were even worse off than Tarvek had imagined and had actually _lived_ in their car for most of their lives. And then there was the horrifying tale of the aforementioned Trickster incident, wherein Winchester had permanently lost his taste for breakfast sausage while trapped in a time loop and reliving variations on the same tragic Tuesday until finally cornering the offending spirit and forcing it to release them. As he finished the story, the wasp eater climbed up on his shoulder and chirruped sadly.

“Dean doesn’t remember it,” Winchester concluded matter-of-factly. “Hell, I barely even think of it anymore. Not like it’s the worst thing to happen to either of us.” He tossed back the last of his tea, then looked at Wulfenbach. “Uh, where’s the restroom?”

Wulfenbach gave him directions, and Winchester excused himself, taking time to put on his socks and boots, settling his gun in the back of his waistband before shrugging his shirt back on to conceal it, and putting the wasp eater on the bed before he left. But once the door was closed, Tarvek and Wulfenbach sat staring at each other in silence for a moment.

Then Wulfenbach shook his head. “We can’t let them go back. Not to _that_.”

“I ordered clothes for them, along with mine,” Tarvek stated by way of agreement. “I don’t mind paying—”

“No, no, they’re my guests. And they’ve earned that and more. I’ve found quarters for them near Dean’s lab; we can tell them when we deliver Dean’s breakfast. He’ll most likely want the car stored there as long as they’re with us, unless we need ground transport.”

“Not sending them straight back to Mechanicsburg, then?”

“Even with Agatha no longer being possessed, The Other is the biggest threat to her. The castle can hold off any rogue sparks that come calling. Von Blitzengaard’s dead, and Father publicly acknowledged you as the future Storm King, so the conspirators should be on the back foot for at least a few days. And Punch and Judy should be ready to decant today or tomorrow, so we can send them to Agatha as soon as they’ve recovered enough to travel. The Winchesters will be the most help to her here, working with us. Take that conversation just now about the Geisters’ religion—had that ever occurred to you or your father?”

Tarvek grimaced. “No. Of course, my father had been besotted with Lucrezia for years before she even met Bill Heterodyne. He was obsessed with bringing her back. If he had known the Geisters’ beliefs could have such an effect, it wouldn’t have bothered him—for all I know, his adoration of her was as literal as theirs.”

“You see? Quite apart from their Spark, we need the fresh perspective. They’ve got experience with large-scale monster outbreaks and supernatural wars, too, which we don’t, however much we’ve learned from our fathers. And even if we tried to send them back to Agatha now,” Wulfenbach added wryly, “I’m not sure they’d go.”

“Rather like Jägers, aren’t they? No, I expect not.”

Winchester returned, looking a bit damp-faced but otherwise still fairly sleep-rumpled, and the three men gathered up the still-warm remains of breakfast and headed toward Winchester Major’s lab. They were still a few meters away when:

_BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!_

“DEAN!” Winchester Minor yelled, shoved the tray into the hands of a passing airman at the same time he drew his gun, and charged toward the lab, where whatever was making the noise was still blaring a single steady note. Tarvek and Wulfenbach chased after him. He flung open the door—

—and found the car, with a dazed Winchester Major sitting in the middle of the front seat, beeping and revving its engine angrily at the tall, burly, white-haired man it had pinned against the wall.

“What abomination of science is _this?_ ” demanded Othar Tryggvassen.

The beep stopped in favor of a chorus of female voices singing, “Don’t say nothin’ bad about my baby!”

Winchester Major’s eyebrows rose even higher as he stared at the car’s controls.

“Baby!” Wulfenbach called. “Stand down!”

“Don’t tell me what to say!” sang a different female voice. “Don’t tell me what to do!”

“BABY!” Winchester Minor thundered.

With a sulky honk, the car shut down, keeping Tryggvassen pinned but no longer causing a scene.

“What the...” Winchester Major began.

“One thing at a time,” Wulfenbach stated, shouldering past Winchester Minor and walking toward the car. “I want to know why she pounced on him.”

“She?” Tarvek echoed.

“No muscle-bound man can take my hand from my guy,” sang yet another female voice.

Wulfenbach shot the car a knowing look. “I see.”

“Wulfenbach!” boomed Tryggvassen. “We meet again! But do not think you can elude me this time, for I, **Othar Tryggvassen** , _Gentleman Adventurer_ , shall drag you back to the baron if it is the last thing I do!”

Wulfenbach crossed his arms with a smirk. “You’re too late. I _am_ the baron.”

That rattled Tryggvassen. “Wh-what?”

“You heard me. My father’s dead. And if you were thinking of using anyone or anything in this lab to get to me, I believe the Black Lady has put paid to that idea.”

“Yakkety yak, don’t talk back!” agreed the car.

Tryggvassen opened and closed his mouth a couple of times without managing to say anything.

“Somebody wake me up!” Winchester Major demanded sleepily.

Wulfenbach ignored him. “As it happens, however, I have a job for you myself, Herr Tryggvassen.”

“Oh, dear,” said Tryggvassen.

“The empire will, of course, be sending emissaries to all the rulers of Europa and beyond to announce my accession. I expect that some of them will decide to test my will as soon as possible. Unfortunately, as you may or may not be aware, a neural clone of The Other has appeared and is causing trouble that must be dealt with immediately. There had been three, to our knowledge, but the one afflicting the Lady Heterodyne and the one that had been installed in Anevka Sturmvoraus have already been eliminated.”

Tryggvassen’s eyebrows shot up. “You _killed_ —”

“The Lady Heterodyne lives. She has merely been exorcised. But that leaves us the problem of the third clone.”

“Ah, and you wish for Me to dispatch her!”

“Well, I don’t know how much you’d enjoy that, seeing as it’s taken over Zola La Sirène Dorée.”

The odd visor-like dark spectacles Tryggvassen wore couldn’t hide his rapid blinking in shock. “Little _Zola?_ ”

“Her real name,” Tarvek chimed in, “is Zola Malfeazium. Her mother was Demonica Mongfish.”

“That explains a lot,” Wulfenbach muttered. “But no,” he went on, “that’s not the job I have for you, Herr Tryggvassen. I need you to take a message to the Polar Ice Lords, stating that if they even consider assaulting the empire—and _especially_ if they make any move against Mechanicsburg....” He paused for emphasis.

“You got blood on your face, you big disgrace,” the car sang over what sounded like stomps and claps, “Wavin’ your banner all over the place.”

“We will, we will rock you!” both Winchesters joined in.

Tryggvassen swallowed hard. “And what’s to prevent me from simply escaping? Your father’s explosive collars no longer work, now that Castle Heterodyne has been repaired.” He pulled down the collar of his mustard-yellow turtleneck sweater to show that his neck was otherwise bare.

Wulfenbach smirked again. “Your sister was a prisoner in Castle Heterodyne, was she not?”

Tryggvassen’s eyebrows climbed even higher. “You plan to use Sanaa as a hostage?!”

“Oh, no. I’m sending her with you.”

Tryggvassen quailed.

Wulfenbach grinned. “GRANTZ!”

Amazingly, Grantz was within earshot and came running. “You called, Herr Baron?”

“See Herr Tryggvassen to Mechanicsburg to pick up his sister. Then deliver them to the palace of the Polar Ice Lords and leave them there.”

“Very good, Herr Baron. Er—”

The car started its engine and backed up enough for Grantz to get close but made sure Tryggvassen couldn’t run before Grantz had firm hold of him. Then it backed a couple of meters further to let Grantz pull Tryggvassen away, bidding him a taunting farewell with a male chorus singing over drums, guitars, and saxophone, “See you later, alligator! / After ’while, crocodile!”

As Grantz escorted Tryggvassen down the hall, the airman with the tray came to the door nervously. “Er, Herr Baron?”

“I’ll take that,” said Tarvek and did so. “Thank you.”

The airman understood the dismissal and beat a hasty retreat.

Winchester Major scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sam, please tell me I’m trippin’ on paint fumes.”

“Sorry, man,” replied his brother. “That really happened. The car’s alive.”

“How the hell even....”

“I saw the sign,” sang the car, “and it opened up my eyes!”

“... what... did... did _I_ do that?”

“You make me feel, / You make me feel, / You make me feel like a natural woman.”

Winchester Major shook his head. “I thought I just repaired you.”

There was a burst of static that sounded a bit like someone trying to find a particular radio frequency before a male voice sang, “Don’t know much about a science book, / Don’t know much about the French I took....”

“I’m curious just how self-aware and autonomous she is,” Wulfenbach admitted. “Are there voice controls per se, or—”

The overhead light inside the car came on, directly over Winchester Major. “I’m just a love machine, / And I don’t work for nobody but you!”

Winchester Minor raised an eyebrow. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“I’m your vehicle, baby, / I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go!”

Winchester Major groaned in disgust. “I _hate_ that song.”

“I’m sorry,” sang a nasal female voice accompanied by violins, “so sorry....”

Winchester Major patted the top of the control panel with a sigh. “I need coffee.”

The driver’s door swung open.

“Thanks, Baby.”

“You can’t _seriously_ believe that’s her name, can you?” Tarvek objected. “That’s... that’s....”

“Undignified?” Wulfenbach offered, amused.

“Yes!” All right, a horseless carriage, however self-aware, was hardly on the same level as the Muses, but honestly....

“Impala,” Winchester Major said with a groan as he got out stiffly. “She’s a ’67 Chevy Impala.”

Wulfenbach nodded thoughtfully. “Swift as a gazelle. She does run like the wind at need.”

“My buddies and me are gettin’ real well known,” Impala preened. “Yeah, the bad guys know us, and they leave us alone.”

Winchester Minor snorted. “I wish.”

Winchester Major, however, had poured himself a cup of black coffee and was guzzling it. He finished the first cup with a groan of relief and poured a second. “Baby, that was a _hell_ of a way to wake a man up.”

Impala demurely played the opening measures of the second movement of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony. Winchester Minor and Wulfenbach laughed; Winchester Major grumbled and cut open a croissant to start piling it with ham, cheese, and slices of hard-boiled egg.

“It was rather rougher than a wasp eater nose to the ear,” Tarvek stated.

Winchester Minor snorted. “I swear that thing has me looking for candy wrappers.”

Winchester Major looked at him oddly. “Dude, Gabriel’s _dead_.”

“We’ve thought that before and been wrong.”

Winchester Major grumbled again and stuffed a slice of orange in his mouth to eat while he decided on condiments for his croissant. Finding only jam and butter, he grabbed a bun to put them on.

He had just finished and taken a large bite of the jam bun when Dolokhov burst in. “There you are, Your Highnesses! Mulverschtag’s about to be hit from two directions. The revenant army continues to lose ground slowly, but the fighting is likely to intensify as they get pushed into the town and find cover. Best estimate is that they’ll reach Mulverschtag within the next hour or two. And from the other direction... well... whatever those monsters were that came out of Sturmhalten’s sewers, they’re almost to Mulverschtag. Dr. Sun managed to examine the samples brought in by the ground troops before the hospital was attacked, but we don’t yet have a good way of killing them.” Dolokhov ran one hand through his hair while another held a report out to Wulfenbach.

Winchester Minor grabbed it instead and held it where his brother could read it with him without getting jam on the paper.

“Got a bit more information than that for you, Herr Baron,” added an unexpected British voice. Tarvek and Wulfenbach turned to see the owner of the voice saluting. “Airman Higgs reporting, sir.”

Wulfenbach returned the salute. “Ah, Higgs, good. Boris, put this man on detached service, reporting directly to me.”

So he _had_ figured out that the mild-mannered blond wasn’t simply a Wulfenbach airman, nor even English. Tarvek approved.

Bewildered, Dolokhov made a note of the order in his notebook. “Very good, Your Highness.”

“You were saying, Higgs?”

“Talked with Her Ladyship’s Jägers last night, sir,” Higgs replied. “Seems there’s monsters and monsters, if you take my meaning. The usual lot from the sewers, we can take those down with conventional weapons. But there’s another batch what was barricaded in a lab below the Deepdown—them glowin’ slime monsters, what I had to fight off to save your father. Those are the ones what could be trouble. All I could do was to knock ’em off the ship.”

Tarvek frowned in genuine confusion. “What lab below the Deepdown?”

“’Twas just off the main room o’ the Geisters’ base, sir, and that door was blocked off with a rubbish heap—bricks and boulders and the like. They’d got lost tryin’ to find their way to Her Ladyship, saw the Geisters leavin’ with their equipment and a whole convoy o’ slaver engines. But the tunnels to the surface were blocked; the only way out they could find quick was through that lab. Dimo said the rubbish heap looked like it had been there some time. Maxim saw a fair bit o’ acid damage in the lab, and Oggie said the place smelled like a bog.”

“Methane,” Dean murmured, eyes narrowed. “Methane and hydrogen sulfide.” He absently finished off his jam bun.

“They don’t cause much acid damage when they move,” Higgs continued, “but they do _spit_ some kind of acidic poison. One of ’em got Dimo’s left hand, and it was in his blood and moving up his arm in seconds. Turned the blood to glowin’ green. Oggie amputated just before the arm melted.”

The Winchesters frowned and went back to studying Dr. Sun’s report.

Wulfenbach turned to Tarvek. “What do you know about these things?”

Tarvek shook his head. “Nothing, I swear. I knew my father had filled the Deepdown sewers with dangerous experiments to keep anyone from finding the Geisters, but there were no indications in his notes of any that match that description, even in the notes he thought I couldn’t find in the safe he thought I couldn’t open. Either he didn’t know about them himself, or he destroyed all mention of them so long ago and so thoroughly that we have no hope of finding anything now.” He paused. “I suppose they might have been an early attempt at the mucosapedalian guard slimes in the hangars at the Refuge of Storms, but that was always held by the von Blitzengaard side of the family. Of course, it could also explain where Tweedle got the idea for the Nullabist potion....”

The Winchesters blinked and looked at each other at the same time.

Then Winchester Minor cleared his throat. “So what do you think?”

“Salt ’em first,” replied Winchester Major. “If that doesn’t dehydrate ’em enough to kill ’em, try hittin’ ’em with sodium bicarbonate.”

“Why not lye? That’s a stronger base.”

“Yeah, but to disrupt their anaerobic metabolism, we’ve got to introduce more oxygen fast, so....”

“Vinegar and baking soda. Got it.”

Wulfenbach raised an eyebrow. “And if that’s not enough?”

Winchester Major shrugged. “Shoot ’em. If the ventilation doesn’t get ’em, the reaction to the lead should—most lead salts are insoluble anyway.”

Tarvek frowned. “That explanation was surprisingly non-mystical.”

Winchester Major shrugged again. “Hell, things were made in a lab. Makes this a problem for science, not magic.”

Higgs started puffing on his pipe to hide his smile.

“Right,” said Wulfenbach. “Did you get all that, Boris?”

Dolokhov nodded, jotting notes with both sets of hands. “I believe there’s a support gig that should have the speed necessary to make the salt drop. But how much—”

“Get one of the Deep Thinkers to work it out. Or put Higgs in charge of it. We’ve got to get cracking on a solution for the revenant problem. Dean, you’re with me. Sam, you assist Sturmvoraus.” Wulfenbach tossed Tarvek his notebook.

“Got it,” the brothers chorused.

Dolokhov, still making notes, walked off with Higgs.

Winchester Major grabbed his croissant sandwich to eat as he walked. “Catch you later, Baby,” he said.

Impala responded with a fanfare that made both brothers laugh.

Tarvek blinked. “Er, what....”

“Theme from _Rocky_ ,” Winchester Minor explained. “Also entitled ‘Gonna Fly Now.’”

“Not that I have any intention of flying any faster than we already are,” Winchester Major added.

Wulfenbach grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. Leave that part to me.”

Tarvek suddenly felt uneasy. “You’re not going to go off and get yourself killed, are you?”

“Good heavens, no. This flyer definitely works. _Agatha_ redesigned the engine.”

“... Oh. Well, then.”

Wulfenbach and Winchester Major left, and Winchester Minor also started for the door. But when Tarvek started to follow, Impala beeped at him quietly.

Tarvek paused and looked at it. “What?”

“Take it easy, take it easy, / Don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy.”

“May be too late for that,” he murmured—and started. “Wait, what do _you_ care?”

“Lucretia MacEvil, little girl, what’s your game?”

Tarvek’s skin crawled. “You think Zola’s out there?”

“Don’t sleep in the subway, darling....”

“Prince Tarvek?” Winchester Minor called from the door.

“Bye-bye, baby, baby, goodbye,” Impala sang cheerfully.

Rattled, Tarvek turned to go. But at the door, he glanced back—and got the briefest glimpse of a man with golden brown hair and golden hazel eyes smirking at him from behind Impala’s steering wheel.

* * *

[1] Incident inspired by [](https://researchgrrl.livejournal.com/profile)[**researchgrrl**](https://researchgrrl.livejournal.com/) ’s sidesplitting true tales of her ferrets’ antics. 


	8. The Road to Mulverschtag

“Umeka teee?” Zoing asked Dean an hour later in Gil’s flight lab.

“Huh?” Dean replied distractedly, tightening the last bolt on the new flyer’s manifold. “Ask Sam.”

“Whirrheee?”

“The hell should I know? I ain’t from here.”

“Dean doesn’t drink tea, Zoing,” Gil explained, wiping his hands on a rag to remove any fuel that might have spilled when he’d filled the fuel tank. “But I’ll take a cup.”

Zoing squeaked an affirmative and bustled off.

Dean finished and closed the engine compartment. “How’d you find that out?”

“Oh, Sam mentioned it at breakfast,” Gil answered. “Sturmvoraus had already made tea, so Sam suggested saving the coffee for you. And given what happened with Tryggvassen, I think he was wise.”

Dean jumped down to join Gil in admiring their handiwork. “That... was a hell of a lot easier than it should have been.”

“Ah, well, I assume sparks in your world are as confined by the laws of physics as non-sparks are. Here we have more leeway.”

“—You’re kidding.”

“Not at all.” Gil accepted the teacup Zoing was bringing him. “Sam said you rebuilt Baby twice. How long did that take you each time?”

“Weeks.”

“Yet it took no more than six hours to repair the damage she sustained yesterday, including the time it took to retouch the paint. Rebuilding the engine took only half an hour, by my estimate. Plus, Baby already showed signs of being a spark’s construction when you first arrived—even Gadreel noticed the music coming on without your touching the controls. And we were barely out of town before you started slipping into a Spark-induced fugue state. Remember when Sam said you sounded like me?”

Wide-eyed, Dean swallowed hard and shook his head, denying the implication more than the memory. “Our dad was a mechanic. He taught me everything he knew.”

“Agatha was raised by mechanics, too. That gave her the skill. But the Spark... that was in her blood. And it’s in yours and Sam’s. Your world just didn’t relate to it the same way.” Gil punctuated his pronouncement with a drink of tea.

Dean was still floundering for a response when Sam and Sturmvoraus arrived, pushing a tank on a cart. “Wulfenbach!” Sturmvoraus called, looking significantly happier than he had all morning. “The spray idea is perfect! We tested it on a couple of the captured revenants. Even in the absence of inhalation, the formula immediately penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream!”

“It’s like a hypospray,” Sam added, evidently more for Dean’s benefit than for Gil’s. “Only it doesn’t penetrate clothing, so the risk of overdose is negligible.”

Dean snorted. “If you say so, College Boy.”

So Dean hadn’t been to university, as Sam had, and was as uncomfortable with his lack of education as he was ashamed of his own intellectual gifts. Interesting. Gil would have to do something about that—later.

“Right,” he said, handing the teacup back to Zoing. “Let’s get this thing installed.”

Dean immediately pointed out the perfect spot on the flyer’s underside to attach the tank, and he and Sam bolted it into place while Gil and Sturmvoraus ran the cable for the valve control into the cockpit and attached the spray nozzles to the bottom of the leading edge of each wing. By the time the last nozzle was in place, Sam was running a hose up from the tank to the pipe feeding the nozzles on one side, and behind him Dean was securing it to the flyer’s body.

“You’ll have to fly pretty fast to distribute the formula evenly,” Sturmvoraus cautioned as Gil went to attach the hose on the other side. “I’d say 170 kilometers an hour, at least, maybe 200 or more.”

“No problem,” Gil replied. “The engine’s capable of speeds up to 250.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Had to cap it there. Wooster was afraid I’d kill myself if I didn’t.”

“Do you have any idea what could happen to you if you _crash_ at that speed?!”

“Oh, I can tell you,” Dean muttered.

Gil ignored him and secured the hose connection. “I’m not _going_ to crash. I’m going to fly over the battlefield, spray the revenants, and land. And I do in fact have practice in landing, both in a hangar on the castle and on the ground, so you needn’t worry there.”

“And if you get shot down?”

“The revenants aren’t armed. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I took the precaution of painting the Wulfenbach badge on the side and under the wings.”

“Better that than the Iron Cross,” quipped Sam, again apparently intending the comment only for Dean. “Does that make him the Green Baron?”

Dean laughed and started fastening down the second hose. Sam joined him.

“Need I remind you,” Sturmvoraus growled, “that you are _not_ the hero of a penny dreadful?”

“If you think I have any intention of leaving _you_ as Agatha’s only surviving suitor,” Gil shot back, “you’re even more delusional than I thought. I’m the only one with any experience flying this thing, other than Wooster, and he’s not here. You said you barely managed to land the other flyer, and you hate flying. So does Dean. And Sam....”

“Not a pilot,” Sam chimed in.

“So get Higgs to do it!” Sturmvoraus argued.

Gil frowned. “He’s not rated even as an airship pilot, plus he’s off dealing with the slime monsters.”

“Dupree, then!”

“You think I’d trust _her_ with this? She’d probably overdose the whole lot, on purpose. Why are you—”

“Oh, get a room, you two,” Dean interrupted without looking away from his work.

Sturmvoraus turned purple and spluttered.

Before the conversation could get any more awkward, a knock at the door heralded Boris’ arrival with the latest dispatches. Sturmhalten appeared to be completely deserted, though the scout ship wisely wasn’t ruling out the possibility of people or monsters remaining inside buildings or underground. Higgs had opted to combine the rock salt and sodium bicarbonate and drop them together on the slime monsters, and the reported result was a disturbingly hilarious mixture of fizzing, frothing, and explosion. Gil ordered a hazardous material cleanup crew to deal with the aftermath. The revenants, fortunately, were still a kilometer or so from Mulverschtag. Unfortunately, it might not be possible for Gil to spray their front line without hitting his own.

“What side effects are we looking at?” he asked Sturmvoraus.

“Temporary incapacitation,” Sturmvoraus replied, “but it should wear off in a minute or two. Since the target is the wasp, it doesn’t pack the same punch as the inoculation formula.”

“So if the spray lands on Wulfenbach troops, I won’t be poisoning them?”

“W-ell, I’d need a much bigger clinical trial to guarantee that, but we don’t have time to worry over it.”

“No. I suppose not.” Gil sighed and looked at the dispatch again. He was going to have to chance it—along with something else. “Your people are going to need someone to rally to, though. The empire’s troops will be escorting them back to Sturmhalten, but if they come to and realize what they’ve done, their morale will be shattered.” He looked Sturmvoraus in the eye. “Your clothes should be ready by now. You three go get cleaned up. Then put a Sturmvoraus flag on the Impala and have a support ship set you down in the center of Mulverschtag.”

Sturmvoraus swallowed hard. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll turn on you?”

“With what army? Besides, you know what’s out there.”

“Including Zola.”

“Whom you have every reason to want to kill. I won’t stop you this time.”

They looked at each other for a moment. And something in his rival’s expression, torn between hope and worry, reminded Gil that for all their difficult history, for all the political and romantic strife between them, they were still, somewhere underneath it all, two boys whose terrible early childhoods had thrown them together and whose school experiences had forged them into something more, something he’d found again only with Theo and Sleipnir.

Best friends.

 _Brothers_.

“Gil,” Tarvek said quietly, “fly safely.”

“I’ll see you in town, old boy,” Gil promised.

The Winchesters exchanged a look and followed Boris to the door, but Tarvek steadied the ladder while Gil lowered his goggles and climbed into the cockpit. Then Tarvek moved the ladder out of the way and located the button to open the hatch. They nodded to each other, and he pressed the button, dropping the flyer out. Gil hit the ignition switch, which started the engine perfectly, then waved back to his old chum and flew toward the battle, humming “Smoke on the Water.”

* * *

The en-suite bathroom in Gil’s quarters had only a single shower, so Prince Tarvek went ahead to take the first shower while Sam and Dean went back to Baby to retrieve their go bags, forgotten in the previous night’s excitement. Prince Tarvek said something about having clothes for them, but they still needed the spare shaving kits, if nothing else. After all, whatever function they were supposed to be serving in this little piece of kabuki, it probably fell into Fed-suit territory, not the kind of image that would go with a day’s worth of stubble.

“Good thing we kept these,” Sam murmured as Baby opened her trunk to let him grab the bags. Even with the bunker as a home base, old habits born of spending decades living in cheap motels and abandoned houses and frequently having to stay one jump ahead of the law, or of monsters seeking revenge, died hard. The go bags had long meant the difference between bugging out with only the clothes on their backs and bugging out with enough essentials to get clear across the country before having to go on the grid for anything. “Not that they’d have done us any good if the portal hadn’t brought her with us, but still.”

Baby honked twice and closed her trunk. That sounded like agreement, but he wasn’t quite sure, so he looked at Dean.

Dean just made a non-committal noise and accepted his bag. Sam wasn’t sure what to make of that beyond the fact that Dean wasn’t in a talking mood, so he didn’t try to push. It _had_ been a hell of a morning already, and it wasn’t even half over.

Instead, he just sighed. “Thanks, Baby.”

 _Beep-beep!_ Okay, maybe that was an affirmative.

“We’ll be back in a little bit. If anyone comes to take you before then, though, it’s okay—Gil wants us to meet him in Mulverschtag, but we have to fly there first. They’ll have to put you on an airship so you can come with us.”

 _Beep-beep._ “Bye-bye, so long, farewell....”

Dean snorted and smiled. “Don’t worry, Baby. We’ll be back.” He patted her hood, and the brothers left.

Truth be told, Sam wasn’t in much of a talking mood himself. He didn’t understand this place. Okay, sure, if anyone could build an airplane in an hour given a diagram and a helper, it would be Dean. Yes, the brothers did give each other a hard time over their respective levels of education, but Sam knew Dean wasn’t _stupid_ , and about the only reason he’d been willing to tackle being Mr. Fix-it during those months in Kermit after hitting Riot was that he’d been able to imagine Dean talking him through the repairs. So on that level, it probably wasn’t that weird that people as science-minded as Gil and Prince Tarvek would pick up on that side of Dean, and of Sam, in spite of Dean’s general deflection of any attempt to label him as a nerd. But Prince Tarvek had gotten really wrapped up in solving the hypospray problem, and Sam had... kept up with him a whole lot better than he’d expected, given how long it had been since he’d taken Biochemistry. Not only that, but when Sam had suggested going for skin absorption rather than inhalation and described what he could remember of _Star Trek_ -style hyposprays, Prince Tarvek seemed to take it as further confirmation of Sam’s being a spark.

This whole thing with the Spark... maybe it had something to do with the Winchesters being archangel vessels. Sam wasn’t sure. All he knew was that the declaration had hit him a little like hearing _Yer a wizard, Harry_ , only a decade or so after his having accepted being a Muggle—or a squib or something. It was disorienting. (It made him miss Charlie.) And he _prided_ himself on his intellectual abilities, on being a Man of Letters. Dean had to be reeling even worse.

Hell, Dean had _brought his car to life_ , without even trying or knowing how. Even by Winchester standards, that was a new level of weird. Yet Gil had reacted like it was totally normal for a car to be sassing him back when he tried to call her down. (Of course she had an attitude. She was a muscle car. She was _Dean’s_.)

Sam sighed. Thinking about it was only giving him a headache. The point was....

—The point was they were walking up to Gil’s quarters, and one of those weird silver-haired, lizard-eyed footmen—Lackya, was that the name?—was standing outside waiting for them. And Dean’s hand was reaching for his silver knife.

Sam caught his wrist. “It’s not a vetala, Dean.”

“Well, it sure as hell ain’t human,” Dean rumbled back.

“I think they’re called Lackya. They’re servants.”

“Lackya—what, like _lackeys_?”

“Basically, yeah.”

Dean grumbled and pulled away but didn’t go for his knife again.

As they approached the door, the Lackya tugged nervously at the front tail of his hot pink coat and bowed. “Prince Tarvek’s compliments, my lords,” he said. “Your clothes are laid out for you. As time is pressing, His Highness requests that you prepare to shower quickly and not wait for him to finish his own toilette.”

Dean frowned in confusion. “What?”

“Uh, thank you,” Sam replied.

The Lackya bowed again and opened the door for them, keeping a wary eye on Dean until they were inside Gil’s room and he could safely close the door again.

“Seriously, Sam,” Dean pressed. “What the hell did he say?”

“Prince Tarvek doesn’t want us to wait for him to finish getting dressed before one of us goes in to shower,” Sam translated.

“So why couldn’t that lackey dude just _say that_?”

“We’re not in Kansas anymore, man. Literally.”

Dean sighed and dropped his go bag next to the bed. “Wish Charlie was here.”

“Yeah. So do I.”

It sounded like the shower was still running, so the brothers took a moment to examine the three-piece suits that had been laid out for them. Whoever designed them had chosen a Western cut, which would help minimize the potential awkwardness of having to wear period clothes. Dean probably wouldn’t mind, given his enthusiasm for dressing up for that trip to Sunrise, but Sam had never been hugely into costuming apart from Fed suits and other practical costumes that served to get them where they needed to go for hunts. Of course, this little adventure _was_ a hunt of sorts, so it wasn’t like... well... dressing up in medieval garb and face paint to go LARPing with Charlie. Even though that had ended up being kind of fun.

Anyway. Sam’s suit was a nice lightweight chocolate brown wool, with a light blue shirt and a vest made of what looked like navy silk with tone-on-tone trilobites woven into it. He didn’t even want to think about how much something like that would cost. Dean’s suit was gunmetal grey, almost the same color as his Untouchables suit, and came with an ivory vest and a dark green shirt.

“What’s with the bugs?” Dean asked, holding his vest up to examine the pattern in better light.

“It’s the Heterodyne sigil. It was all over Mechanicsburg, remember?”

“Mm. Right, right. Guess we’re Agatha’s representatives in all this, or something.”

The shower turned off.

“I think your hat will go with the suit just fine,” Sam noted. “And the vest goes with your gun.”

Dean chuckled and finally set the vest down. “Yeah, but I almost hate to put my badge on it.”

“The badge probably ought to go on the coat anyway.”

“Yeah, but it’ll look stupid. The Man with No Name never wore a suit coat.”

“Never wore a badge, either.”

“True.”

“Dude, you’ll look like Ezra Standish. It’ll be fine.”

“I am _so_ not Ezra Standish! Chris Larabee, _maybe_.”

“Yeah, but he wore all black.”

“Sam....”

“Look, forget the badge. ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ badges,’ right? We’re Men of Letters.”

Dean snorted.

Just then, Prince Tarvek stuck his head around the edge of the bathroom door. “Ah, good, I thought I heard your voices. The shower’s free, if you don’t mind my finishing up at the sink; we shouldn’t waste any time.”

Sam shrugged with his eyebrows and looked at Dean, who said, “Just leave me some hot water.”

Sam huffed in amusement and handed Dean his gun, watch, and pocket contents, then quickly grabbed the essentials out of his go bag, along with his suit pants and shirt, before heading into the bathroom. The shower cubicle didn’t quite look big enough for Sam to feel comfortable sitting down in the front half to take off his boots and socks, but there was a claw-foot tub as well, so he sat down on the edge of that so as to have more maneuvering room.

Prince Tarvek was already halfway dressed and was buttoning his silver-grey shirt. “There are towels in there,” he said, nodding toward the shower. “You can pile the laundry by the tub here; Zoing will see to it while we’re away.”

Sam nodded. “Gotcha.” He set his boots out of the way and added his socks to the laundry pile, then decided to make use of the space while he had it and took off his shirts. When he looked up, however, Prince Tarvek was frowning at him. “What?”

“That’s... an unusual tattoo.” Prince Tarvek put his pince-nez on to get a better look at the starburst-pentangle inked on the left side of Sam’s chest. “Do all Americans have them?”

Sam snorted. “I wish. Would make our job a lot easier if they did.”

“Oh, so it’s not some national symbol or the sign of your house?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s an anti-possession sigil.”

“Ah, I see... professional hazard, being a demon hunter.”

“You could say that.”

“Standard practice?”

Sam stood up and dropped his shirts on the laundry pile. “No, although it probably should be. Dean didn’t think of it until after I’d been possessed the first time.”

Prince Tarvek’s eyes widened. “ _You’ve_ —”

“Yeah. Twice.” Sam decided not to factor Gadreel into the equation this time; he hadn’t recovered many memories of the times when the angel had taken control, but it didn’t seem like he’d done anything... unangelic, so to speak.

Prince Tarvek frowned. “Twice?! But if the sigil worked....”

“The second time was Lucifer. He’s still an archangel and had to get my consent, so the sigil didn’t matter. And I only gave my consent so I could throw him back in the Cage.”

“What... what was it like, being possessed?”

Sam frowned. “What?”

“I-I don’t mean how it happened. Obviously, that wouldn’t necessarily be the same in both worlds. But... well, Agatha, you know, was possessed by Lucrezia, and I’m about to go home to a town full of people who’ve been mind-controlled, and... I just... look, Gil accused me of wanting to become Lucrezia’s successor. I _don’t_. But there are things I hadn’t thought through before that I’m having to consider now, and I just don’t have enough data.”

“Your Highness, I’m not sure you really want to know.”

“I probably don’t. But I believe I need to.”

Sam sighed and tried for the most concise explanation. “All right. Imagine waking up to find that you’d killed Gil and Violetta, feeling yourself beating Agatha to death, watching her bleed out under your hands, and hearing your voice say things to her that you would never in your life want to say to anyone, not even your worst enemy... and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it.”

Prince Tarvek paled and steadied himself on the edge of the sink.

Considering the point made, Sam went into the shower cubicle and tried not to think about the taste of blood, the stench of sulfur—anything beyond the task at hand. It didn’t work. By the time he shut the water off, the only thing that felt clean was his skin. Once he was dried off and dressed enough to leave the cubicle, though, he had himself pulled together well enough that he thought he could face the prince again. The startling fact that his new clothes fit perfectly and felt pretty comfortable helped. But he’d resolutely tuned out any noises or smells beyond the shower itself, so it surprised him to find Dean waiting for him by the sink instead of Prince Tarvek.

“Dude,” Dean said quietly, putting down his razor. “What the hell did you say to him?”

“He wanted to know what possession was like,” Sam replied at the same volume.

Dean raised his chin in understanding. “What’d you tell him about?”

“Stull.” There had been horrifying moments in his first possession, too, especially when the demon, Meg, had come close to doing unspeakable things to the brothers’ friend Jo Harvelle; but Dean had put a stop to that, and later Bobby had stopped Meg from killing Dean. Watching Lucifer beat Dean to a bloody pulp on Baby’s hood in Stull Cemetery after killing Cas and Bobby had been orders of magnitude worse. His being able to overpower Lucifer long enough to throw himself into the Cage had been an absolute miracle.

Dean nodded slowly. “Well, it worked. He tossed his cookies. Zoing’s gone to get him some ginger tea.”

“Gonna take a lot more than ginger tea to help the people of Sturmhalten.”

“Yeah. I know.” Dean squeezed Sam’s shoulder and went in to get his own shower.

Sam blew the air out of his cheeks and finished getting ready for the day, wrapping up just about the time Dean finished his shower. But he couldn’t find his boots.

“Lackya took ’em,” Dean explained when Sam asked. “Said the cordwainer had some way to get the dimensions of your feet from the wear pattern.”

“The _cordwainer?_ ”

“Don’t look at me, dude. At least you didn’t have to deal with some clank thing grabbin’ your foot to take measurements of.”

Sam huffed a laugh in spite of himself and left the bathroom to find Prince Tarvek, with his shirt only half buttoned and his chin still unshaven, nursing the last of his cup of tea. Zoing was standing by the teapot, ready to pour him another cup. Neither seemed to notice Sam as he put his shaving kit back in his go bag and picked up his vest to put on.

“Hey,” Sam said quietly, shrugging into the vest. “You okay, Your Highness?”

Prince Tarvek sighed without looking up. “No. But perhaps I shouldn’t be.”

Sam didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.

“Look, Winchester—Sam—I need a favor.”

Sam shrugged and started buttoning the vest. “Shoot.”

“You and your brother seem to have no use for titles and ranks. I find that... rather refreshing at the moment. So please, both of you... call me just plain Tarvek, and ‘dude’ and ‘man’ and whatever else instead of ‘Your Highness.’ I think... I could use the humility.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“Thank you. And thank you for your honesty earlier. You were right; I didn’t want to know. But now I do. And now I know what I must do.”

Sam frowned in concern. “What does that mean?”

Tarvek did look up at that, blinked, and smiled and shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t intend to harm myself in any way except maybe politically. I still have every intention of reclaiming the Throne of Lightning. I’ve just realized that there are some prices I’m not willing to pay to get it.”

Sam nodded. “Gotcha.”

Dean came out of the bathroom just then, and at the same time the Lackya returned with new boots for all three men and a gun belt for Sam. Tarvek went in to shave while Sam and Dean finished gearing up, which involved a lot of discussion about the proper way to wear a gun belt under a frock coat when all one had to go on were classic Westerns that the brothers knew from unfortunate experience weren’t accurate and a lot more discussion of whether they ought to worry about their weapons not being period-correct and whether any of the above even mattered when almost everything could be handwaved on account of the Winchesters being the only Americans these people had ever seen. Tarvek came out of the bathroom laughing so hard he was holding his sides.

Then they all put on their suit coats and headed back to Baby, who was being loaded onto a cart and gave them a happy honking-to before playing a few bars of “Come Go with Me.”

“We’re comin’!” Dean called back. “Keep your chrome on.”

That earned him five quick honks that sounded like laughter.

The flight to Mulverschtag was mercifully short and filled mainly by Dean and Tarvek standing in the middle of the cargo hold commiserating about how much they hated flying. Sam took the opportunity to whisper to Baby that she should probably keep mum when they disembarked, and she honked twice quietly in agreement. Then she played the opening of “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.”

“What—are you asking about Gil?”

_Beep-beep._

“We’re meeting him there, remember?”

 _Beep_. “Up in the sky, a man in a plane....”

“Oh. I haven’t heard, but we would have if anything was wrong.”

_Beep-beep._

“Approaching Mulverschtag, my lords,” called someone from the bridge.

Baby held her doors open, and the three men got in, although Tarvek still looked a little spooked by her. The airship touched down in the town square a minute or so later, and Baby rolled out of the hold and over to the bat-winged flyer, where Gil was talking with a couple of very large Jägers in red uniforms. Tarvek heaved an audible sigh of relief.

“Everything went like clockwork,” Gil reported as they got out and the airship crew began loading the flyer into the cargo hold. “The Sturmhalteners should be arriving in a few minutes. Sam, Dean, I don’t think you’ve met Gen. Khrizhan and Gen. Goomblast. Gentlemen, Sam and Dean Winchester from America. They’re here to help Agatha.”

“Vell, vell!” said Gen. Khrizhan, whose gold-capped tusks and gruff voice were a little intimidating despite his friendly smile. “Zo hyu iz de boyz vot kilt der batterink ram?”

Dean cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “Uh, yes, sir.”

“Goot, goot. Und now hyu help uz fight De Odder’s bogs, yah?”

“Yes, sir. That’s why we’re here.”

Sam nodded his agreement.

“ _Verra_ goot!” boomed Gen. Goomblast, whose sharp-toothed smile was practically Leviathan-wide. “Our Heterodyne needz all de allies she ken get!”

“Hoy,” Gen. Khrizhan interrupted, sobering as he looked past the brothers. “Der Storm King looks a leetle green.”

Frowning in concern, Sam turned to Tarvek, who really did look pretty grey of face out here in the sunlight. Sam had thought it was just the reflection off his shirt, but that would be muted now that he had his red suit coat on. The passing shadow of the departing airship didn’t change that perception.

But Tarvek managed a wan smile and a slight chuckle. “Not as green as I was a couple of days ago. I’ll make it. Mr. Winchester just gave me some information that will make me a better king, that’s all. So, what’s the plan?”

Gil looked worried, but he answered, “Well, the Jägers are sending a messenger back to Mechanicsburg to get Agatha’s permission for them to help us track down the Geisterdamen. Your people, as I said, should be arriving any time now. And the innkeeper here”—he pointed to a tavern a few doors down that had a balcony overlooking the square—“said you can use his balcony if you want to make an address.”

Tarvek nodded slowly, looking up at the balcony. “Yes. Yes, I think I’d better. And I want you and the Winchesters up there with me.”

Gil blinked. “What? Why?”

“Trust me.”

“I don’t think I—”

Tarvek looked Gil in the eye. “ _Trust me_.”

Gil sighed. “All right, fine. Don’t make me regret this.”

Sam wasn’t sure who was trying harder not to make a smart remark, Dean or Baby. Either way, there wasn’t really time for one; it sounded like the Sturmhalteners were just a few streets away. So Tarvek took a deep breath and headed for the tavern, and Gil and the Winchesters followed him inside and upstairs to the door that led to the balcony. Baby and the Jägers followed, too, though judging from what Sam could hear behind him, they were stationing themselves outside the tavern as people began filling the square and the Jägers instructed them to wait.

“Tarvek,” Gil said quietly, “just so you know, I don’t have casualty estimates yet, but... your losses were pretty heavy. I gave orders that the dead be returned to Sturmhalten for burial.”

Eyes shutting in pain, Tarvek bowed his head and braced himself against the door with his left hand. After a moment, though, he hauled in a deep breath and nodded. “Thank you.”

“You sure about this?” Dean asked Tarvek as he straightened.

“No,” Tarvek admitted. “But Gil was right. My people need me.”

Gil definitely looked worried at that. But Sam, who had stationed himself at a window, noticed that the crowd noise was pretty muted, all things considered. There wasn’t much talking; in fact, most of what he could hear were sniffles and sobs. This crowd wasn’t going to be inclined to turn into a mob, no matter what Tarvek said.

Then again, Tarvek _was_ supposed to be the Storm King... and green clouds usually went before hail and even tornadoes. There was no telling what was about to happen.

“They’re ready,” Sam reported when it looked like the last of the crowd had arrived.

Tarvek looked at Gil, still plainly heartsick. “Stand with me, Gil. Please.”

Gil hesitated, then nodded. “All right.”

Tarvek nodded back, pulled himself together with another deep breath, and opened the door. He and Gil walked out together, with Gil to Tarvek’s left; Dean fell in two steps back to Gil’s left, and Sam two steps back to Tarvek’s right. Sam was thus able to see when Tarvek’s stride faltered briefly and his shoulders slumped minutely upon his first sight of the size of the crowd, which didn’t look very big to Sam. But that moment of defeat was barely the space of two heartbeats. Then Tarvek’s shoulders squared again, and his face seemed to set in determination as he walked up to the balcony rail. Gil stopped a couple of steps behind Tarvek, and Sam and Dean stopped when Gil did.

“People of Sturmhalten,” Tarvek began, his voice carrying effortlessly. “We have all lost a great deal these last days. My father is dead. My sister is dead. Many of your friends and family are dead. And those of you here have lost a measure of innocence you may not have known was yours to lose.

“But those losses are not the fault of the Wulfenbach Empire,” he went on, startling Gil. “The groundwork was laid many years ago and built upon by my father and his friends. None of these things would have been possible without the evils wrought by The Other—Lucrezia Mongfish.”

Gasps of horror went up across the square.

“I do not know how I can repair the damage done to each of you by my family,” Tarvek continued. “But this much I can do. I hereby denounce the Lady Lucrezia and all her works. I renounce all ties my family has held to the Geisterdamen and to Lucrezia’s servants among the Knights of Jove. And I swear before God and all of you that I will help my friend, Baron Gilgamesh Wulfenbach”—here he pulled Gil forward and put his hand on Gil’s shoulder—“along with the Lady Agatha Heterodyne and her servants and friends, including the Jägers and the Men of Letters, to hunt down and destroy all remnants of Lucrezia’s work, to free people infected with slaver wasps whose infection has not made them obvious revenants, and to restore the peace of Europa.” He paused, swallowed hard, and concluded, “May God forgive us and help us all.”

The sniffling grew louder.

As Tarvek stepped back, Gil cleared his throat. “People of Sturmhalten, you know how my father treated rebels, but what you have done was not by choice, and no punishment I could devise can possibly be worse than the memories you will have to live with. I hold you blameless and accept Prince Tarvek’s vow of friendship and assistance. Wulfenbach and Heterodyne forces will accompany you back to Sturmhalten, both to ensure your safe conduct and to stand ready should our investigation into the late Prince Aaronev’s work with Lucrezia Mongfish reveal information that requires immediate action. Go home and mourn, but do not fear reprisal.”

About half the crowd broke down at that and wept. Gil and Tarvek looked at each other and turned to go inside, flanked by the Winchesters.

As Dean closed the door behind them, Gil looked at Tarvek again and said, “You may have just committed suicide.”

Tarvek’s dark eyes flashed. “If the Knights of Jove think they can kill me now, they’ve got another think coming. But even if they succeed, at least I’ll die knowing I did the right thing.”

“And invoking God?”

“Let’s say I’m... reconsidering my atheism.”

Gil pondered that a moment, then smiled a little and clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look and followed them down the stairs.

“I still reserve the right to kill you myself if necessary,” Gil added, giving Tarvek a friendly jostle.

Tarvek managed to chuckle. “Oho, just you try.”

Sam and Dean exchanged another look and barely managed not to laugh out loud. They all had their game faces back on as they reached the tavern’s front door, however, and somehow it seemed appropriate to be getting into their big black car given the somber mood of the crowd. The innkeeper handed Dean a basket of food on the way out and refused to accept payment, even from Gil. Baby held her doors open for them, and the Jäger generals promised to follow with the civilians. So in they got, and Dean followed Tarvek’s directions to get out of town, going slowly not only to let the Sturmhalteners keep up but also out of caution because of the aftermath of the slime monster battle up ahead.

Baby managed to hold her peace until they got out of town. But then she switched on her radio and burst into... “Snoopy’s Christmas.”


	9. Shattered Dreams, Wounded Hearts, Broken Toys

When the noon chimes rang, Agatha felt no small measure of relief. The morning she’d had made her very grateful for the administrative experience she’d gained working for Dr. Beetle at Transylvania Polygnostic University—everyone wanted _her_ input on everything or needed to update _her_ about various projects or situations. Fortunately, she had Van and Mamma Gkika to run interference for her, along with a very efficient secretary whose name she still hadn’t caught, and Van had convinced Moloch von Zinzer to stay on as Chief Mechanic (a designation he preferred greatly to “chief minion”) and oversee the reconstruction efforts that Castle Heterodyne hadn’t already completed itself. Still, there was a lot of planning and organizing going on that did genuinely need her input. She’d been busy, even by the standards of the past couple of weeks. Lunch was going to provide a much-needed break, and since no one was in immediate mortal peril, she was going to _take_ that break.

But thinking of that made her run through her options of whom to have lunch with. Since Agatha had been meeting with Mamma Gkika, Gen. Zog, Krosp, and Castiel about the defenses and the latest intelligence briefings for the last couple of hours (having been constantly interrupted, which dragged out the meeting), Zeetha and Violetta had gone off somewhere with Maxim. Krosp was going to want to talk shop if she had lunch with him, and she thought she’d heard Castiel accept an offer to lunch with the Jäger generals. Theo and Sleipnir were at the hospital, she thought, probably overseeing the castle’s rearrangement of that part of town to clear space for the new spark asylum without destroying any houses, which was apparently going to involve shifting the town walls several hundred meters in a direction or two. Van was busy and said Wooster had left town on business but would be back sometime that night; von Zinzer was across town dealing with repairs and not likely to want to eat with her anyway; Dimo had sent Oggie with Gadreel to meet Gil, Tarvek, and the Winchesters in Sturmhalten and guide them through the Deepdown; Dimo himself was attending to some sort of business with Jenka... who did that leave?

Suddenly, she realized there was someone she hadn’t seen all morning who might need the reassurance of having lunch with her. “Forgive me,” she told the generals. “I have a guest I’ve been neglecting.”

Castiel frowned briefly, then raised his chin in understanding. “Kevin. I’m not sure the castle’s let him out of bed yet.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the castle replied, sounding slightly insulted. “Master Tran is not of the family line.”

Krosp had a suspiciously timed hairball. Mamma Gkika and Gen. Zog just rolled their eyes.

“Where is he, then?” Agatha asked.

“In the library, Mistress. Looking for a dictionary, I believe.”

Castiel blinked. “What sort of dictionary?”

“He said something about... Proto-Elamite. I told him I couldn’t be certain what we might have in that line, since that language died long before the Ht’rok-din came to Mechanicsburg and any library the previous castle might have had would have been destroyed when Egregious Heterodyne created the River Dyne.”

Castiel muttered something in a language Agatha had never heard before.

“Right,” said Agatha. “Castle, please ask Mr. Tran to meet me in the gallery above the Gate of Lamps and have someone bring us lunch there.” Not many people in the castle at present could actually cook, and no one wanted to eat von Zinzer’s cooking anymore, so until Van could get a good staff hired, he’d arranged a catering rota with various restaurants around town.

“Lunch? Above the Gate of _Lamps_?” The castle sounded puzzled. “I can suggest several much more romantic overlooks—”

“This is _not_ to be a romantic lunch! Mr. Tran is a prophet, not a prince! Besides, I’ve already got two suitors; I don’t need more.”

“Oh, but the harem quarters—”

“HETERODYNE!”

The castle sighed. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Hyu iz getting better at dot,” Mamma Gkika observed, amused.

Agatha smiled wryly. “Yes, well, I suppose I’ll have to keep at it unless I manage to reprogram it.”

“You wouldn’t!” gasped the castle.

“Don’t give me a reason to!”

It sounded a bit strangled when it reported, “Master Tran has been delivered safely to the requested meeting place.”

Now it was Agatha’s turn to sigh. “That wasn’t what I meant, but thank you anyway.”

Lunch arrived about the same time she did, which was a good thing because Kevin was yelling at the castle about manners—she thought. It was a little difficult to follow his line of thought, since it mostly involved people and places she didn’t know and occasionally lapsed into another language. The castle seemed bemused by the rant, but that didn’t stop it from continuing to provoke him until she told it to shut up and leave him alone.

“Thanks,” Kevin said with visible relief. “Uh, do you mind if I call you Agatha? Since you’re my age, it’s a little weird to go by last names.”

She smiled. “That’s fine, Kevin. We should probably remain formal in public, but it can be pretty awkward.”

He smiled back, even more relieved.

“Would you join me for lunch? I’m sorry I’ve been tied up in meetings all day and haven’t had a chance to speak with you properly yet.”

“Yeah, no, sure, lunch sounds great. Sorry, I’m just... still pretty jet-lagged after the jump here.”

She wasn’t sure what _jet-lagged_ meant, but she took the food from the delivery boy and looked around for the best place to sit. She’d misremembered there being tables up here.

“I don’t mind sitting on the floor,” Kevin offered.

She considered, then nodded. “We can make it a picnic, then.”

As chilly as the castle still was at this hour, she opted to set things out in a sunny spot—they wouldn’t be able to see out, since the windows started about a meter and a half above the floor, but at least they’d have plenty of light and more warmth than if they were sitting closer to the cold stone walls. He sat down across from her and accepted a sandwich, but he was leery of the vacuum flask until it turned out to hold only tea.

“Do you not drink?” she asked, pouring him a cup.

He grimaced. “I do; I’m just trying to be careful. Got pretty wasted a few weeks ago without meaning to.”

“And in Mechanicsburg, you can never really be sure what’s safe to drink.”

He blinked and accepted the cup from her. “You do understand.”

She nodded. “I’m new here, too.”

They raised their cups to each other with a smile, but he still let her drink first. She couldn’t blame him.

“So!” she said after a few bites of sandwich. “Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?”

“Neighbor, Michigan. Then for a while I lived on a houseboat in Missouri, but after some... really crazy stuff happened, I had to move to a secret hideout with Sam and Dean.”

“Was the houseboat while you were at uni?”

“Uh, no. I... didn’t get the chance to go to college. We leave high school later than you guys, but I was in Advanced Placement classes and skipped a couple of grades, so I was going to graduate early with a bunch of college credits. But then I got struck by lightning and turned into a prophet.” He sounded kind of bitter about that.

“Where did you want to go to college?”

“Princeton. You may not have heard of it, but in our world and our time, it’s one of the most prestigious universities in America. It’s in New Jersey. What about you?”

“Transylvania Polygnostic, in Beetleburg, which is where I grew up. It’s not far from here. I was studying applied sciences and robotics, but they wouldn’t let me do much on the medical side. I could go to lectures and watch demonstrations, but nothing hands-on.”

“That stinks. I was planning to major in political science, maybe try to get into the School of Public and International Affairs if I was accepted to Princeton.”

She blinked. “Really?”

He nodded. “I wanted to be the first Asian-American president of the United States. Figures I’d lose my shot at that before I was even old enough to vote.” That comment was definitely bitter.

But she was intrigued. “And before that, in... high school, you called it—did you study politics then?”

“Sort of, mostly extracurricular stuff. I was in Student Council, went to Boys State, that kind of thing.”

“What’s Boys State?”

“It’s a program sponsored by the American Legion where high school juniors learn how city, county, and state governments work. Some of it’s lecture; some of it’s hands-on stuff. There’s a version for girls, too, called Girls State. And then every year two guys from each state get to go on to Boys Nation in Washington, DC. That’s about how the federal government works, and the delegates form kind of a mock Senate to learn about the legislative process. I was one of the youngest guys ever selected from Michigan to go to Boys Nation.”

She was definitely intrigued. “So you’ve _practiced_ being part of a government?”

“Uh, yeah. Did Model UN, too—um, UN means United Nations. It’s not exactly an international government, but it does a lot of work with peacekeeping, disaster relief, human rights, and so on.”

“You didn’t happen to bring any books with you, did you? About government, I mean.”

“I... don’t think so? I don’t remember what all is on my Kindle, and I have to be careful about using that anyway, since there probably isn’t a good way for me to charge the battery here.”

She bit her lip and restrained the urge to ask what a Kindle was. “Would you tell me everything you can, or write it down somewhere?”

He blinked. “Why?”

“I never studied political science. I’ve never liked politics at all. But now, not only am I the ruler of Mechanicsburg... the baron said he was leaving the empire to _us_ , to Tarvek and me as well as Gil. I assume that means he wants all three of us working together to govern it.”

“That, or to divide it among you. That used to happen a lot with big empires when the conqueror died—Alexander, Charlemagne.”

“Right, but either way, I really need to learn as much about politics as I can as soon as I can. And even though I know there must be books in the library and people in town whom I could ask for advice, I don’t think I can rely _just_ on their judgment. Mechanicsburg is... different.”

He considered that and nodded slowly. “I don’t really know how much of the American way of doing things would really apply here. I mean, you might have to go with a legislature that’s more like a parliament—like, have a House of Lords, a House of Sparks, and a House of Commons, or something like that.”

“Yes, but it would help to have a foundation to build on, to know what’s worked somewhere else. The details can be adapted to fit.”

“Why don’t I try writing it down, then? Might be easier for you to follow if I can draw graphs and flowcharts and stuff like that.”

“Perfect. I’ll send someone to find you a blank journal.”

His eyes looked suspiciously bright as he smiled. “Thanks.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just... it’s been a couple of years since anyone’s wanted me to do anything but read old stone tablets about monsters. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get anything like my old life back.”

“I know what you mean.” It had been only a few months since Omar von Zinzer had stolen her locket, which at the time had been keeping her from fully breaking through as a spark, and her world had turned upside down literally overnight. “Listen, I still have a couple of friends among the faculty at TPU. Maybe when all this is over, I could get you in on a scholarship or something.”

He huffed and looked down at his sandwich, but the corners of his mouth twitched upward briefly. “Last person to make me that kind of offer was a monster. A Leviathan. He meant it as a bribe to get me to translate the tablet that explained how to kill him.”

“It wouldn’t be a bribe this time. I know what it’s like to have your life changed—ruined—by something you never saw coming. I probably can’t go back myself, especially since Dr. Merlot expelled me in an attempt to stay on the baron’s good side, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you.”

He sniffled and looked up again with a watery smile. “You know something? For the first time, I’m... I’m kind of glad we came.”

She smiled back.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want me to put him in the harem quarters, Mistress?” the castle asked.

Kevin choked.

“ _Quite_ sure,” Agatha replied firmly. “Stop asking.”

“Oh, very well. I suppose the Jägers will retrieve your other consorts soon enough.”

“Consorts?” Kevin squeaked.

Agatha rolled her eyes and took a bite of sandwich to cover long enough to find a way to change the subject.

* * *

The drive from Mulverschtag to Sturmhalten started out fairly boring, which made Sam glad for the food the innkeeper had sent. Baby took over driving to let Dean eat with both hands, but the road was clear and straight until they got to the area where the hazmat team was still cleaning up the residues from the slime monster battle. The Carpathian scenery was pretty, but nothing that put the Tetons to shame, at least not when they were driving only about five or ten miles an hour to let the Sturmhalteners keep up. Maybe the speed would seem leisurely if they were taking a drive for pleasure, but as it was... Sam was ready to be there already.

At least until, about half a mile past the last mound of lime-green foam that was all that remained of a slime monster, a wild-eyed blonde in a hospital gown staggered out of the woods and onto the road. Baby braked hard and blared the opening fanfare of “Lucretia MacEvil.”

“It’s Zola!” yelped Gil.

“Dead or alive?” Dean asked, looking back at the princes.

Gil looked at Tarvek, who swallowed hard. “Alive. We need to know where the Geisters went; she’s our best shot at getting the information quickly. I know she knows where one of their most secret bases is.”

Dean nodded, opened his door, and got out, sticking close to Baby’s body and thus remaining shielded by the door.

“Please!” Zola gasped, blue eyes wide and too innocent for belief. “Oh, please, help me, kind sir! The evil baron is—”

Dean drew his gun and, with almost medical precision, shot her once each in both shoulders, her right hip, and her left knee.

“Vot der dumboozle?!” roared Gen. Khrizhan, charging up from behind the car.

Baby responded by turning up the volume on the second verse of “Lucretia MacEvil.”

Gil got out, studiously looking only at Gen. Khrizhan. “General. Have her wounds dressed and bandaged, and bring her to Sturmhalten restrained and under heavy guard. Give her morphine only if she must be sedated; we’ll need her awake and talking once we get there. Otherwise, nothing stronger than goldenseal or willow bark, maybe yarrow for the bleeding—absolutely _no_ battledraught. Dean shot to disable. Let’s keep her that way.”

“Hyu dun vant her taken to de hospital?” Gen. Khrizhan asked, though it sounded more like a test than a serious question.

“She’s already escaped from the hospital once, when she was injured much worse than this. We can’t take any chances with her this time. That’s the fake Heterodyne girl—and she’s got a copy of The Other in her head.”

Gen. Khrizhan roared again and started barking orders to the Jägers who were in earshot, who leapt into action at once.

“GIIIL!” Zola squealed.

Gil clenched his jaw and got back in the car. Dean did likewise, and Baby closed both doors after them, though she rolled down Gil’s window as Gen. Khrizhan bent down to talk to him again, his broad face almost entirely filling the window.

The general’s voice was deceptively mild when he asked, “By de vay, vot hyu gun do vit her ven ve getz to Sturmhalten?”

Gil had his eyes fixed on the back of Dean’s head. “Question her about the Geisterdamen,” he said tightly, “and about her role in the Storm King conspiracy.”

“Und after dot?”

“She’ll stand trial for treason, espionage, and at least six counts of attempted murder, after which I might just give her to Castle Heterodyne and tell it to get creative.”

Gen. Khrizhan chuckled, which was a rather disconcerting sound. “Hyu do chust fine, Herr Baron.” He patted Gil’s shoulder surprisingly gently and went to oversee the Jägers taking Zola into custody.

“NO!” Zola screamed. “NO!! HELP! GIIIIIIL!”

“Stop lyin’, stop lyin’, stop lyin’, Lucy!” wailed David Clayton-Thomas from Baby’s speakers.

Gil’s eyes shut in evident pain as he swallowed hard and grabbed the armrest of his door in a death grip. Baby locked her doors, rolled up his window, and kept the music volume high enough to mostly drown out Zola’s cries. And when the song ended, she switched right over to Electric Light Orchestra’s “Evil Woman.”

As soon as the Jägers had Zola cleared out of the way, Dean said, “Let’s go, girl.”

Baby leapt into Drive and sprinted up to 70 mph, and after a few seconds, once Dean convinced her to slow back down to 30 so as to let the Sturmhalteners sort of catch up, Gil finally relaxed and opened his eyes.

“You all right, Gil?” Sam asked.

Gil took a deep breath and let it out again. “I... I will be. Thank you, Dean. And you too, Baby.”

“Hey, ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend / When people can be so cold?” Baby replied.

Gil huffed. “No kidding.”

Tarvek gave Gil a long, assessing look. “Wasn’t sure you had it in you, even after the way you got me shipped home.”

“Don’t know whether to be glad or worried that I did.”

“We both knew Zola in Paris,” Tarvek explained to the Winchesters. “Seemed like a completely useless idiot at the time. She was always getting into scrapes, and Gil was always getting her out of them.”

Gil huffed again and shook his head. “Figures that of all of us who’ve turned out to be more than we seemed back then, _hers_ would be the deadliest secret.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look at that. Then Sam cleared his throat. “Y’know, maybe Dean and I ought to handle this interrogation. Zola knows you two; she knows what buttons to push, whichever personality is in charge. She’s got no information about us, aside from the fact that Dean shot her and that you were in our car.”

“As far as we know, anyway,” Dean amended.

“Dude, what are the odds of Lucrezia even knowing enough to get hold of the books?”

“Pretty damn low, but anything’s possible. Barry Heterodyne wound up in our bunker, after all.”

“He _what?_ ” Gil gasped at the same time Tarvek leaned forward and asked, “Bunker? What bunker?”

“Later,” Dean told both of them.

“Look,” Sam insisted, “the point is, it wouldn’t be like going up against Crowley or Meg or—or Alastair. She’s not even a full-fledged demon. And you’ve already shot her up once.”

“So?”

“So, good cop, bad cop, Mr. Untouchable. You probably won’t even have to say anything, just glare at her.”

Dean gave Sam a sidelong look before smirking slowly. “You’re on.”

Baby merrily started playing “My Boyfriend’s Back.”

Tarvek started asking questions then, all about the bunker and its library and about why Sam had called Dean “Untouchable,” which led to the subject of Dean’s getting dragged back to 1944 and working with Eliot Ness to track down and kill Chronos, which led to more complicated discussions about time travel and all the ways the Winchesters had and hadn’t experienced it. Sam very carefully did not reveal any specifics of the Enochian time travel spell their grandfather had used to reach them from 1958 (with Abaddon on his tail, no less), and when Tarvek pressed, Sam noted that they had no way of knowing whether magic from their universe worked in this one.

Gil, he noticed, was listening very intently and not saying much, even about the time travel technicalities. Well, good; at least whatever intelligence he was gleaning and whatever calculations he was running on that basis would get him thinking of problems other than Zola for a while.

As Baby began the steepest part of the climb northwest toward Balan’s Gap, however, a Wulfenbach airship flew past and landed a few miles ahead. Gil leaned forward to track its progress and declared, “That must be Higgs. Looks like he’s landing about where the circus ambushed Father.”

Tarvek let out a startled cough. “The _circus_? I hadn’t heard that part.”

“Well, they _had_ had Agatha traveling with them. Evidently he tried to ambush her, and she did something to trigger the defenses she’d hidden in all the wagons.”

Baby started playing “Send in the Clowns”—no, that was probably Three Dog Night’s “The Show Must Go On,” but it fit anyway.

“What was Agatha doin’ with the circus?” Dean asked.

“Kind of a long story,” Gil replied, “but the short answer is, hiding from my father.”

“And playing her mother onstage,” Tarvek added. “Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure happens to be a Heterodyne show, and somehow Agatha wound up playing Lucrezia—which is unfortunately how my father discovered that her voice was enough like Lucrezia’s to identify her as Lucrezia’s daughter.”

Gil looked skeptical. “By sound?”

“By voice print—oscilloscope readings. And her first line was to thunder ‘Kneel, you miserable minion,’ so....”

“Let me guess. All the revenants in the audience knelt.”

“Which was the entire audience and the ushers. Anevka and Lord Selnikov probably had them all killed, since they’d imprinted on Agatha and wouldn’t respond to Anevka’s retuned voice.”

“Lucrezia’s, you mean.”

“Ah, no, Anevka’s. I’m not sure exactly when my sister died, but the clank had become sentient enough not to realize that she wasn’t controlling it anymore. I wasn’t sure until it killed my father, ostensibly to save Agatha’s life, and then decided to torture Agatha for fun after she got sufficient readings for me to retune the voice box. I managed to stop it before it could hurt her, but... well, then the Geisters caught Agatha and installed Lucrezia, and everything went sideways in a hurry.”

Gil sighed heavily. It seemed like the only proper response.

“Look, I thought I had the situation under control before Agatha came along—Father was lucid enough with Anevka around, and we usually managed to keep him from sending any more girls through the beacon engine. And Anevka herself hadn’t done anything particularly psychopathic by our standards with the clank. Maybe I could have gotten things under control again if the Geisters hadn’t escaped. As it was... well, let’s just say that _at the time_ , it seemed like putting Lucrezia in a new clank head and using it to replace Anevka was the least dangerous option.”

Gil very pointedly didn’t say anything.

Tarvek noticed. “Red fire, Gil, I’m _here_ , aren’t I? I’m going to help you clean up the mess.”

And Gil relented. “I know you will.”

“You... you do?”

“I’ve seen what happens to people who make sacred vows and try to worm their way out of them.” Gil shot Tarvek a sidelong look. “I think you have, too. And I know you’re smart enough not to take the risk.”

Tarvek sighed. “Even vows to false gods can backfire. Look what happened to Selnikov.”

“Well, to be fair, _I_ happened to Selnikov.”

Tarvek couldn’t suppress a slightly hysterical giggle. “I wish I’d been able to see that. Too bad I was busy not dying.”

Gil chuckled.

“Wait, who?” Dean asked.

“Count Rudolf Selnikov,” Gil replied. “Leader of one faction of the Knights of Jove, one that had sworn fealty to Lucrezia. He showed up at Mechanicsburg with a regiment of war stompers—and I fried him with my lightning stick. I understand Dr. Sun managed to revive his head, though.”

Baby started playing “Thunderstruck.” Sam chuckled.

They reached the clearing just then, and Dean steered Baby off the road and over to the airship. Higgs was standing outside talking to two guys—no, a man and a Jäger, probably, since what looked like a fair-haired man with a fez and a triple-bladed poleaxe actually had sharp teeth, a horn growing out the left side of his head, and bare, forked feet.

“That’s one of Agatha’s Jägers, isn’t it?” Tarvek asked as Baby rolled to a stop. “Her honor guard or whatever they are?”

Gil nodded. “I think his name’s Oggie. But who’s the other fellow?”

Dean looked and frowned. “It can’t be....”

“Pretty little angel eyes,” Baby played as if in confirmation.

Sam blinked. “That’s _Gadreel?!_ But... how did he....”

“He did say he might be able to make his own vessel,” Gil interrupted. “He just wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to do it immediately after healing you.”

Dean cursed quietly. “He must have done another shot from the Dyne. Idjit.”

Sam’s heart gave a pang. He wasn’t sure whether it was from missing Bobby or from hearing Dean use that term of affectionate exasperation toward an angel—one about whom Sam still had extremely mixed feelings. (Still? Hell, he’d only known about Gadreel’s existence for less than a day!)

Mercifully, however, as Baby opened her doors and the four men stepped out, any other potentially awkward conversation was forestalled by Oggie’s joyful cry of, “HOY! Iz de schmot guyz! Miz Agatha vas sure vorried about hyu!”

“We’ve only been gone overnight,” Gil replied, amused.

“Yah, but ve heard hyu iz goink into de Deepdown after de Geisters. Hy followed dem a long vay down, zo Hy ken show hyu. Dot’s vy she esked Meester Gadreel to bring me here.”

Gadreel looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps I should be getting back to the hospital.”

“Wait,” said Gil. “We may need you here. Higgs?”

Looking grave, Higgs took his pipe out of his mouth. “Scout ship spotted children in the town, sir. Little ’uns, like five and under, too young to be wasped. They look scared stiff—and hungry.”

Tarvek ran a hand over his face. “It’s been nearly a week since Anevka activated the revenants. From what I’ve heard, Lucrezia’s orders left them too mad to function normally; they may not have eaten at all, never mind thinking to take care of the children. I’ve... I’ve....” He faltered to a stop, as if his mind was shutting down.

Sam put a hand on Tarvek’s shoulder. “Take care of your people first. Let the rest of us deal with Zola and the Geisters.”

“Zola?!” Higgs echoed.

“The Jägers have her,” Gil assured him quickly. “And she won’t find it easy to get away, thanks to Dean.”

“And don’t you go healing her,” Dean added sternly to Gadreel. “Stick to the kids.”

Gadreel huffed. “Very well.”

“Seems to me we’ve got four things on our collective to-do list,” Gil stated. “Taking care of the Sturmhalteners, going through any of Aaronev’s notes that may be left in the castle, questioning Zola, and exploring the Deepdown. The Geisters have a week’s head start, more or less, so it’s probably going to be most efficient for Oggie to lead the Jägers into the Deepdown while the rest of us split up the other tasks.”

Oggie nodded. “Hokay, Meester Gil. Dot’s vot Miz Agatha thought, too.”

“Gadreel, if you would, work with Tarvek to get the children squared away first, then the rest of the Sturmhalteners when they arrive. The more we can care for here, the fewer we have to burden Dr. Sun with.”

Gadreel bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement.

“Higgs, you can help me search the castle while Sam and Dean interrogate Zola.”

“Will do, sir,” Higgs replied.

“I’ll give you the combinations to the safes,” Tarvek volunteered. “Father’s top secret one is tricky to open. And if you haven’t found the chapel by the time I get back this evening, I’ll show it to you.”

Gil nodded. “Thanks.”

“We’d better go scout the road into town,” said Dean, “make sure there’s no surprises waiting for us.”

“Good idea,” Gil agreed. “Oggie?”

“Diz vay,” Oggie replied and led Gil and Dean a short way off, out of immediate earshot but not out of sight.

Sam, feeling awkward, went to the front bumper on Baby’s passenger side and sat down on her hood, looking around at the forest. He was genuinely scanning for danger, but he was avoiding Gadreel, too, and everyone else seemed to know it from the tense silence around him. But they left Sam alone, so that was all right.

“Er, Gadreel,” Tarvek suddenly asked quietly, “could I ask you something?”

“You have already done so,” Gadreel replied, sounding confused. “Did you wish to ask another question?”

Sam had to smother a laugh.

Tarvek cleared his throat. “As an angel, you can see... well, spirits, right? Ghosts?”

“Yes,” Gadreel answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, this is a bit awkward, but... is Impala haunted?”

“Haunted? No. She is what Dean has made her.”

“It’s just that... well, I thought I saw....”

Baby piped up, “The eyes of Texas are upon you / ’Til Gabriel blows his horn!”[1]

Sam couldn’t pretend not to be listening now. He turned around to find both Gadreel and Tarvek giving Baby very odd looks. “Wait,” Sam said. “You seriously think _Gabriel_ is driving Baby?”

“So long to Texas University,” Baby blared, “Goodbye to the orange and the white!”[2]

Sam threw back his head and laughed.

Tarvek raised an eyebrow. “I... take it that’s a no?”

“That’s a _hell_ , no!”

Baby continued, “‘The eyes of Texas are upon you,’ / That is the song they sing so well—SOUNDS LIKE HELL!”

Sam doubled over with laughter and had to catch himself on her hood.

“Dude,” Dean said, coming back over. “What—”

Sam gasped for breath. “Your car’s an Aggie!”

“What, you don’t like the Jayhawks? Traitor.”

Baby honked five times, laughing.

Tarvek looked at Gadreel, who shook his head with the patented angelic expression that meant _I will never understand humans_.

“Seriously, Sam,” Dean pressed.

Sam was still trying to regain his composure and his breath, so Tarvek answered, “I saw someone in your car. Impala seems to think I saw Gabriel.”

“When you’re hot, you’re hot,” Baby sang. “When you’re not, you’re not!”

Gadreel looked skeptical. “I have never sensed Gabriel’s presence in this car.”

“When was this?” Dean asked Tarvek.

“This morning,” Tarvek said, “after we dealt with Tryggvassen.”

Dean frowned, studying Baby. “When’s the last time you saw the weasel?”

Tarvek opened his mouth, then paused. “Oh. I’m... not sure. Is it important?”

“Probably not.” But Sam could tell Dean didn’t mean that. Of course, they had no evidence that Gabriel had ever taken non-human form—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t. “No sense worrying about it now, though, right, Baby?”

 _Beep-beep!_ Baby replied. “I’m a Jay, Jay, Jay, Jay, Jayhawk, / Up at Lawrence on the Kaw.”

“Ah!” said Gadreel. “College football. I see.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Tarvek. “We don’t go in for university sports much here.”

“Gabriel’s not here,” Dean continued. “If he’s in this world, he’s not with us making himself useful, which is pretty much par for the course. And Baby is herself.”

Baby agreed with a few bars of “Just a Girl.”

“So let’s quit worryin’ about Gabriel and get into town. Those kids are waitin’ on us.”

Tarvek blew the air out of his cheeks. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, little darlin’!” sang Baby.

That got Gil’s attention, and he rejoined the group as Baby held her doors open. And then Tarvek started giving Baby directions as to how to get into town, and they were off, leaving Gadreel to follow with Higgs and Oggie. For his part, Sam was just glad no one expected him to talk at the moment, because his abs were alerting him to just how long it had been since he’d last laughed that hard.

So worth it, though. _So worth it._

* * *

[1] The last lines of the University of Texas fight song.

[2] The first lines of the (Texas A&M) Aggie War Hymn.


	10. Don't Sleep in the Subway

_You know better than this_ , Jody chided herself as she drove out of Sioux Falls in mid-August, and again as she passed Omaha, the Kansas state line, Topeka. _Text messages with mystery coordinates from unknown numbers are_ not _an invitation to cake and ice cream. You_ know _that._

But she was going to those mystery coordinates anyway. She couldn’t help it.

That’s what Bobby would have done. It’s what Sam and Dean would have done. And none of them were here to do it for her.

She felt marginally better to arrive at her destination in Wichita and find it was a hospital. A petite Asian woman about Jody’s age sat, slightly hunched as if she were cold despite the summer heat, on a bench outside the entrance. But as Jody approached the doors, the lady perked up a little.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you Sheriff Mills?”

Jody blinked and stopped. “Yes, ma’am.”

The lady’s relief was palpable as she stood. “Crowley said you’d come. I’m Linda Tran—I’m Kevin’s mom.”

Jody gasped. “Kevin thought you were dead!”

“I nearly was. Crowley had been keeping me hostage, but then he disappeared, and the guard....” Linda faltered to a stop.

“You don’t have to explain.” Jody pulled out her hip flask of holy water and offered it to Linda.

“Thank you.” Linda drank easily and handed the flask back. “Anyway, Crowley came back and let us all go, but I was in the worst shape, so he brought me here and said he’d send you to pick me up when I was released.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He said something about a plan to stop Abaddon, but I don’t know any more than that.”

Jody nodded slowly. “Have you eaten?”

Linda grimaced. “Only hospital food.”

“Let’s get something to go, then. I’ve got a safe place where we can spend the night.”

Linda nodded and followed Jody to her truck. Not until they were inside it did she ask, “Where _is_ Kevin?”

Jody sighed. “He’s all right, as far as I know. He’s with Castiel. But more than that’s gonna have to wait until we’ve eaten. It’s a long story.”

“And the short version?”

“They’re looking for the Winchesters.”

Linda drew in a ragged breath. “Crowley said... Kevin had told him to tell me goodbye.”

Jody reached over and rubbed Linda’s thin shoulder slightly. “Cas was going to take Kevin with him to keep Kevin safe. But I don’t even know if they’ve left yet. Sounded like they had a lot of research to do.”

Linda sniffled. “You’re a mother, too?”

“Was. Had a son.”

“Demons?”

“No... not the first time.” Jody steeled herself against the inevitable flashbacks—the hospital, the funeral, her baby boy turning up on her doorstep, getting sick again, _turning_....

A surprisingly strong hand gripped her wrist as Linda asked, “The second time?”

“He was a zombie.”

Linda gasped. “ _Oh._ ”

Jody swallowed hard. “All I can say is, thank God for Sam Winchester.”

“Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry.”

Jody sniffled and huffed in amusement. “Who’s consoling who here?”

Linda chuckled. “Are you sure you’re all right to drive?”

Jody nodded. “Yeah, I’ll make it. Let’s just get some food in us.”

But nothing sounded good to either of them at the time, so they both got sodas and French fries. Not until after Jody had told Linda the full story of the Winchesters’ disappearance, about the time they got to Salina, did either of them have enough of an appetite for a burger. They got groceries in Salina, too, just in case.

The lights were on inside the bunker when they arrived, but calling for Cas and Kevin got no response. So Jody led Linda down the stairs to the library, where both Kevin’s laptop and Sam’s were gone but a leather-bound volume that looked like a journal sat on one table. On top was a note addressed to _Mom_.

“That’s Kevin’s handwriting,” Linda breathed and snatched up the note. One hand crept up to cover her mouth as she read, although it seemed to take all her willpower not to let the other hand tremble. “Oh, Kevin,” she whispered as she got to the end.

“What does he say?” Jody asked quietly.

“They left two weeks ago. But he didn’t want to go without saying goodbye.” Linda put the note on the table and ran a hand over the journal. “He said he didn’t know when they’d be back... if they even could come back. But this is the journal they’d been looking for, by a-a Lord Heterodyne. Kevin said it should tell us all we need to know, and... p-possibly... how to keep up with what they’re doing, wherever they are.”

Jody put an arm around Linda’s shoulders. “At least we know he’s alive.”

Linda finally broke down at that and let Jody pull her into a hug. But the maternal tears didn’t last more than a couple of minutes before she backed away, wiped her face with a tissue, and reached for the journal with a determined glint in her eyes. “He said I might have some trouble reading— _oh!_ ” she exclaimed as she picked up the journal and something fell out of it. Handing the journal to Jody, she picked up the object.

“What is it?” Jody asked, flipping the journal open at random.

“A candy.” Linda looked at it more closely. “A Vietnamese candy—my favorite kind. I haven’t seen any of these in this country for _years_. How....”

“Welcome to the Men of Letters,” Jody muttered and looked down at the open book. Then she frowned. “What kind of trouble did he think you’d have?”

“Translation.”

Jody looked up again. “This is in English.”

* * *

Almost anyone who happened upon Dean stretched out on Baby’s front seat with his hat down over his face and the windows cracked would assume he was dozing. And he was trying to. It had been too short of a night after too long of a day, and he wasn’t sixteen anymore. But there was more to it than that.

He was hiding.

 _Spark. Smart guy._ It didn’t make sense. Sam was the smart one. Sam went to college. Oh, sure, Dean had wanted to, a lifetime ago, but now he knew his lot in life. He was just a grunt. He wasn’t the type of guy who... built airplanes with the guy who’d just inherited practically the whole of Europe. Never mind the whole parts-to-plane-in-an-hour business. But they had a job to do here, and even if they could find some way to go home, they couldn’t leave until the job was finished. So... yeah, Dean was hiding, but probably only one other person knew it.

No, make that two other people, if you counted the one who was playing all his favorite tunes at the moment. He’d gotten used to her already—but hell, he’d loved the old girl all his life. Maybe part of him had always known she was in there, waiting for a chance to come out and express herself. And she loved him, too; she’d made that abundantly clear already. It was a gift.

A gift he didn’t deserve.

Would she even be alive anymore if they went back? She’d broken through the same way he had, but was that something that would be undone if they left? If they couldn’t leave without killing her—oh, no, no, no, Dean couldn’t go there, not now. He felt sick enough already. He tried yet again to shut his mind off and just let the music lull him to sleep.

He still hadn’t quite managed it when the music turned down and there was a knock on the window behind him. “Jägers are here,” Sam said quietly from outside. “Have to get Zola settled first, but Oggie’s showing Gil the cell where they broke out from the Deepdown so Gil can have Zola placed somewhere else.”

Dean sighed. “Thanks.”

After a pause, Sam asked, “Want me to stay?”

Baby opened her back door before Dean could answer, and he heard Sam climb into the back seat. She closed the door again after him. Neither brother said anything for a long moment.

“Those kids are in pretty bad shape,” Sam finally stated even more quietly. “Tarvek’s barely holding it together, trying to help them.”

“Runnin’ out of ginger tea?” Dean returned, because it was the only smart remark that came to him.

“Dean.” There was no heat behind it, though.

Another moment passed before Dean said, “Guess it’s a good thing Gadreel came along. Cas doesn’t have his mojo.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Look, I know you don’t like him, Sam. Hell, I’m not sure _I_ like him. But he did save your life and leave, like he’d promised. And he’s tryin’ to help now.”

Sam sighed. “Maybe he should stick with Tarvek. If Gil’s right and renouncing Lucrezia is going to put his life in danger... I mean, we saw what von Blitzengaard was capable of doing.”

Dean raised one eyebrow, though the motion was hidden by his hat. “Don’t you want him with Agatha?”

“Agatha’s got Mechanicsburg, plus Cas. Tarvek’s an ally with a lot of knowledge, a lot of connections, a lot of potential, but he’s also the most exposed. He needs protection, especially after that vow.”

“What about Gil?”

Sam’s smile reached his voice for the first time in this conversation. “Dude, Gil’s got _us_.”

Baby agreed with a few bars of “The Boys Are Back in Town.”

Dean chuckled, and somehow that made him feel better enough to nod off for real until Sam woke him with news that the Jägers had gotten Zola settled. Groaning, Dean sat up straight and pushed his hat back.

“Thirty-six hours,” said Sam, watching something out the back windshield.

“What?”

“That’s how long we’ve been here.”

Dean blew the air out of his cheeks. “Feels like it’s been years.”

Sam huffed in amusement. “Months, maybe. Here comes Gil.”

Baby opened her doors, and the brothers got out as Gil, joined en route by Higgs, walked over to them. Dean looked past them toward the prison wing of the castle, where Oggie was waiting at the door and the Jäger generals were barking orders to the horde.

“You should wait until they’re all inside,” Gil stated, handing Dean the key to Zola’s cell attached to a huge ring of other old-fashioned keys. “Not only is the door narrow, but Zola’s bound to be able to hear them filing in. Jägers are quiet only when it’s imperative to approach with stealth, but since the odds are that no Geisters are left here, they’re constrained only by the need to actually _look_ for clues rather than charging straight after Oggie, wherever he leads. Zola’s got more pluck than I’d given her credit for, but _I’d_ be rattled if I heard the Jägers tearing around in the basement, and I’m _used_ to them.”

Higgs chuckled.

“How’s it comin’?” Dean asked.

Gil grimaced. “Slower than I’d like. I’ve had to repeat the clemency order five times to get all units to understand it. And we’ve been trying to make arrangements for the coronation, but we can’t find the bishop. Tarvek says he wouldn’t have been among the wasped. Probably ran back to Belfast as soon as things started going pear-shaped here.”

“Well, hell, we’ve got Gadreel. He can do it.”

“Pretty hard to argue divine right when an angel does the crowning,” Sam agreed.

Gil smiled wryly. “True.”

“VE HUNT!” the Jägers roared suddenly, but as ordered, they didn’t charge. Rather, they marched into the prison in a surprisingly orderly fashion.

“The Jägers used to be men,” Gil explained when he noticed Dean’s raised eyebrows. “They were the Heterodynes’ shock troops, the best fighters and the most bloodthirsty. Loyal to the bone. Every one took the Jägerdraught of his own free will—and nine out of ten of them died from it.” He shook his head and looked over his shoulder. “What were they thinking?”

“ _I_ dunno,” Higgs muttered under his breath, as if it were a personal affront somehow. Huh. Interesting. “Still damn good soldiers, though,” he added less grumpily and at a normal volume. “Know how to follow orders. Rowdy bunch, but if the general tells ’em to march in a column of twos, they march in a column of twos.”

The four men fell silent and watched the Jägers pass, while Baby played “The St. Louis Blues March” and a few other hits from World War II. Dean wondered idly how she even knew them. But several times he caught the Jägers bobbing their heads along with the music, which was more amusing than it should have been, especially on “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

“The Andrews Sisters?” Sam teased her at the end of the song. “Seriously?”

“Thou aeronautical boll weevil,” the Mills Brothers retorted, “Illuminate yon woods primeval!”[1]

Even Higgs laughed at that one.

A few minutes later, the end of the column finally came into view, so the men walked over to the prison and waited for the path to be clear, falling in at the end of the line so as to make their tread less distinguishable from the Jägers’ trampling. Inside, the Winchesters followed Gil and Higgs to the staircase that led to Zola’s cell.

They were still climbing when they heard, “STOP YELLING AT ME!”

All four men froze.

“It’s _not my fault_ , Auntie! I’ve never seen that kind of clank before! ... Well, _you_ didn’t know who they were, either! Besides, it had a Sturmvoraus flag; I thought they were part of the Order. And how was I to know the Jägers were so close behind them?” Zola sobbed. “How am I supposed to do that when I can’t even _walk?!_ ”

Gil swallowed hard. Higgs gently but firmly pulled him away. Sam, meanwhile, had his notebook out, pen poised over the paper.

“It was a _fluke_ that we were in earshot of your other self at the hospital. We can’t count on there being anyone here we can seduce into healing us the same way. And even if I did have my Moveit #11, I couldn’t take on the entire Jäger horde by myself. ... What can they even find here, anyway? Your priestesses burned everything they didn’t take. ... But if they’re going to the Citadel of Silver Light—” Zola paused, then burst into a flurry of furious French. Dean couldn’t follow more than a cuss word here and there, but Sam was scribbling notes as fast as he could.

Wait, if they were in Transylvania, how come everybody spoke English? Or _did_ they? If Sam and Dean were subject to some sort of universal translator spell, though, why didn’t it work on French?

Dean decided not to worry about it for the moment. He needed to come up with a bad-cop approach quickly to deploy as soon as Zola stopped arguing with Lucrezia. He’d already shot her once; she should know she couldn’t seduce him. But maybe... she was worried about the Jägers... hmmm... he’d had fangs once himself....

Zola broke off in mid-sentence and started crying loudly. There was a chance, of course, that the whole thing was an act, but much as he hated to admit it, he could scare even Lucrezia if he had to. He’d spent ten years under the tutelage of Hell’s torture master, after all, and the demons didn’t call him “Alastair’s apprentice” for nothing. If he did have to tap into that side of himself, though, he prayed Sam would be able to pull him back from the abyss.

Silently, Dean drew a deep breath and signed _Listen_ to Sam. Sam nodded once. Then Dean deliberately jingled the keys in his hand and walked the rest of the way up the stairs to the next floor. Zola’s was the first cell on the left. He opened the door and took in the windowless walls, bare even of light fixtures or shackles, and the solid stone floor, on which Zola lay with only a blanket beneath her. The only light was coming from the torches in the hall behind him. There was absolutely nothing in this cell she could use as a weapon, even when the bones he’d shattered finally knitted. Zola herself had been bandaged per Gil’s orders, but her gown still showed bullet holes and blood spatter, and her tear-streaked face was pale and lined with pain.

Dean leaned against the door jamb with a contemptuous snort and a shake of the head. “And they thought you could pass for the Heterodyne. Pathetic.”

“Please,” she blubbered. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Nah. I’m under orders. The baron wants you alive. I think he wants to find out just how you wound up with The Other in your head. But y’know, me an’ him, we’re pretty tight. Maybe he’ll let me help out with his... _experiments_.”

She sniffled angrily. “You’re lying. You had a Sturmvoraus badge on your clank; you’re not a Wulfenbach man, even if Gil was with you. And the baron wouldn’t dare experiment on me—Gil wouldn’t allow it!”

“You tried to kill his girlfriend. And it’s not the first time you’ve killed a human, is it?”

“What... what do you mean?”

Instead of answering directly, he started casing the cell again. Not quite as escape-proof as reinforced concrete, but it would definitely keep Zola contained as long as she was injured. “I used to be a vampire,” he said casually.

She gasped audibly.

“Oh, it was only for a couple of days. We found a cure. But you know, vampires, they can smell things most people can’t. Some of those smells... man, I’ll never forget.” This much was true. The bluff required him to look her in the eye again. “And there’s one I can smell on you.”

“Blood?”

“Death.” Granted, given his line of work, he’d learned to recognize that smell years before his brief stint as a vampire. But at the moment, it was all he could do to hold off a flashback to the night Sam and their resurrected maternal grandfather had found him in the middle of the building after he’d single-handedly slaughtered all the other vamps in the nest that had claimed him. He had a script—a conversation between Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid in _Chisum_ —and he needed to stick to it.

Sam’s hand landed on his shoulder, grounding him. “Hey. Ease off, Big Casino.”

Good, he’d caught the reference. Dean just managed not to sigh in relief.

But Zola gasped as Dean turned to pretend to snipe at Sam. “ _Heterodynes!_ ” Had she finally noticed the pattern in their vests? “But that’s... that’s... well, how would _you_ know, Auntie?! Didn’t they go to America before you married Uncle Bill?”

Sam and Dean frowned at each other in confusion.

“But how do you know they’re not constructs or.... The baron came back from Skifander, didn’t he?!”

Dean’s eyebrows rose. The baron had been in Skifander? Had he known Zeetha or anyone Zeetha knew?

—Come to think of it, Zeetha was about Gil’s age, and they did look a lot alike....

Sam, on the other hand, murmured something Enochian under his breath. Dean had no clue what or why.

“But maybe they aren’t even from the same branch of the family,” Zola went on. “Maybe they’re related to one of the _old_ Heterodynes. I mean... I mean....”

Sam cleared his throat. “Miss Malfeazium, we do have a few questions to ask you.”

She visibly cringed. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Dean chuckled unpleasantly. “Darlin’, we’ve already _hurt_ you.”

“I said ease off,” Sam growled. “You know what the baron’s orders are.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just sayin’.”

“This isn’t like when you and Benny—”

“Leave Benny out of this,” Dean snarled. The fact that Dean had come back from the combat zone of Purgatory with vampire Benny Lafitte for a war buddy had been a real sore spot between them over the last year. Sam finally understood their unlikely friendship, but his change of heart had come too late to save Benny’s unlife. Not that Dean resented Sam’s resentment anymore, but still, this blow was a little too close to the belt to be brotherly banter. “You know I wouldn’t have even met him in the first place if—”

“You _are_ Heterodynes!” Zola wailed. “Stay away from me!”

Sam ignored her. “Look, Dolokhov said the baron’s about to dispatch units to the Citadel of Silver Light. Go see if Dupree will let you go with her.”

“HA!” Zola crowed. “I knew you were lying. He’ll never be able to take the Citadel of Silver Light!”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean shot back. “What makes you so sure?”

“It’s on the moon!” A look of utter horror crossed Zola’s face as soon as she’d said that.

So the Enochian was a truth spell, and apparently some magic did still work here. Well done, Sammy.

“So where did the Geisterdamen go when they left Sturmhalten?” Sam asked.

“To the Jotun brothers,” Zola replied reluctantly. “They have the only other copies of Gottmurg Snarlantz’s notes. They’re supposed to take some of the slaver engines to the sparks among Auntie Lucrezia’s other servants in the Order to see if they can replicate Snarlantz’s work and improve the slavers in other ways. Then the Geisters are taking the rest of the slavers and the beacon engine to Passholdt. The baron’s already been through there to clean up Snarlantz’s last experiment, so he won’t be looking for anything else related to Auntie Lucrezia’s work. But not many people know anything’s happened to Passholdt, so the Geisters can catch people to wasp or to put through the beacon engine without too much trouble. The more revenants they have to rebuild the town, the less likely it is that anyone will suspect the Geisters of being there.”

“Where are the Jotun brothers?” Dean asked.

She shook her head. “Auntie Lucrezia won’t tell me.”

“His Highness will know,” Sam noted and flipped his notebook closed. “Thank you, Miss Malfeazium. I’m sure we’ll have more questions for you later.”

She sniffled miserably. “The... the baron’s not _really_ going to experiment on me, is he?”

And suddenly Sam chuckled in a way Dean hadn’t heard him chuckle since he’d gotten his soul back after it had accidentally been left behind when Cas rescued his body from Lucifer’s Cage. “Not until after you stand trial, anyway.” He motioned for Dean to back up, then slammed the cell door shut and locked it with an audible _clack_.

Dean waited until they were nearly to the foot of the stairs to whisper, “ _Dude_. I thought I was supposed to be bad cop.”

“She thought we were Heterodynes,” Sam replied at the same volume. “The kind of Heterodynes who could create something like Jägers. And from what little I’ve heard, even Bill and Barry had a ruthless side. I mean, I do remember what I was like with no soul. I was just... trying to stay in character.”

“Hate that we even know how.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

Dean sighed. “C’mon. Let’s go find Gil.”

Human Wulfenbach troops were in the process of setting up as guards around the palace when the Winchesters came back out into the courtyard. It took several minutes of being directed from one commander to another, but they finally caught up with Gil and Higgs in one of the palace halls.

“Oh, good, I’m glad you’re finished,” Gil said when he saw them. “We need your help. I think there might be information in the Deep Library, but I’d forgotten that Tarvek had said it’s infested with giant smudge beetles. We can’t get to any of the books until we’ve gotten rid of the beetles.”

An odd expression crossed Sam’s face.

“Uh, sure,” said Dean. “Lead the way.”

On the way to the library, the brothers briefed Gil on what they’d learned from Zola about Lucrezia’s marching orders. Nodding, Gil gave Higgs orders to dispatch scouts to Passholdt and made a note to ask Tarvek about the Jotun brothers and the other sparks who might be working on slaver improvements. Sam seemed to be okay as they talked. But then they got to the library, where beetles Dean could see even from the door seemed to be everywhere, and Sam went pale and started breathing hard.

“You see the problem,” Gil stated.

“That’s... that’s...” Sam stammered.

“... Uh, Sammy?” Dean prompted.

“That’s—I—YAAAAAAAAH!” Sam screamed and launched himself into the library, moving so fast Dean couldn’t even keep track of where he was. There was a lot of squealing and squelching before the beetles stampeded out of the library and toward the nearest exit, and Sam finally came to rest, leaning against a pillar on the far side of the library, panting harshly and spattered with bug guts.

“What the _hell?_ ” Dean asked.

Gil chuckled kindly. “Yup. He’s an information science spark.”

“Oh.” Had _Dean_ gone into that kind of frenzy working on Baby? He decided he didn’t want to know and was glad there’d been no witnesses either way. “Hope your people know how to get bug out of silk,” he added, noting the state of Sam’s vest.

Gil laughed. “They’ve gotten far worse stains out of my clothes.”

“HOY!” a Jäger voice called from somewhere outside. “Bog for dinner!”

That announcement was met with a roar of approval.

“Aaand I don’t think we need to worry about a repeat performance,” Gil added with a wry smile. “At least not until we can get the beacon engine out of Passholdt.”

“Dean?” Sam called, sounding dazed and surprisingly young. “I saved the library.”

“You sure did, dude,” Dean replied, going in to collect him. “C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Sam tottered three steps away from the pillar and faceplanted.

* * *

[1] Actual lines from the third verse of “The Glow-worm.”


	11. Of Cabbages and Kings

Metatron put down his book with a dissatisfied sigh. He wanted to read _everything_ —always had—but this book had been so badly written, it had bored even him. And there were two more in the series just like it. He almost never gave up on books, but he might have to give up on these.

Truth be told, it wasn’t just the book. He was beginning to regret his decision to cast down all the other angels. Here he was, home at last, and there was no one to talk to and no one to serve him. If he was taking over in Father’s stead, he deserved service, didn’t he? But none of the angels were present to serve him even if they’d wanted to. And the humans were all safely locked in their own private heavens, and if he went to them, they either didn’t realize he was there or didn’t want to talk to him. Bobby Singer had even run him off with a shotgun, which had actually hurt!

No, the time had come (the walrus said) to write his epic masterpiece and lead the angels home, united under one banner—his own. The trick was going to be charting out the right plotline.

Studying the angels’ current predicaments, Metatron found Bartholomew and Malachi proclaiming themselves leaders of the main factions and waging war on each other with tremendous collateral damage to humans. Most of those who were attempting to remain neutral did so out of love for humanity and rejection of the notion, prevalent among the warring angels, that Castiel had been responsible for the fall. All of them wanted to go home; none of them agreed on who should lead.

It was going to be easy, Metatron concluded, to cast Castiel as the villain of the piece and use him as a foil to promote Metatron’s own agenda. Opening the portal to allow the return was going to require killing Kevin Tran and retrieving the angel and demon tablets, all currently under the Winchesters’ protection. Ordinarily, that obstacle would be insurmountable, but Metatron already had a potential way around it: Gadreel, who was hiding in Sam and who was so desperate to clear his name that he should be easy enough to manipulate. Recruit Gadreel to do his dirty work, and Metatron could sit back with popcorn while the Winchesters self-destructed in the wake of Kevin’s death and Gadreel’s betrayal. Meanwhile, it shouldn’t be hard to convince Castiel to come out of retirement and lead the neutral angels, especially with the right sort of trap. A few nudges in the right direction, and Dean would do the unforgiveable, with Castiel backing him all the way. Or at any rate, Metatron would have no difficulty making it _look_ like he supported Dean, especially if Dean did something Castiel’s supporters thought worthy of death; the angels would demand that Castiel kill Dean, and Castiel would refuse like the loyal chump that he was. Disappointed, the angels would defect from his cause to Metatron’s, and then... well, Father’s throne would be his for the taking. And “it’s good to be the king,” right?

Metatron re-read the _Supernatural_ books to be sure of his material, then sat down at his typewriter and worked up an outline. It all looked perfect on paper, so he set about making preparations. His first order of business was making sure no new prophets would be activated after Kevin’s death. Those were quests he could accomplish on his own, so he did. It was a cakewalk compared to framing Castiel for the fall.

Then Metatron discovered that a side effect of pulling that lever was closing Heaven to the arrival of new souls, meaning the dead were trapped in the Veil for the moment. Oops. Oh, well, that should be easy enough to rectify once the portal was open, and it would be another credit line on his hero CV. As long as he solved the problem, no one should care that he caused it, right?

The next item on the agenda was locating his scapegoat, his sacrifice, and his sidekick. Castiel wasn’t visible to Metatron, but that wasn’t surprising because he had that warding tattoo hiding him. Gadreel was also invisible to heavenly radar, as were the Winchesters, but they might also have hidden themselves. But Kevin...

... Kevin was nowhere to be found.

Metatron searched. He scried. He did every tracking spell known in heaven and on earth and under the earth. He sought for the tablets and couldn’t find _them_ , either. It was like they had simply but literally dropped off the face of the earth—the Winchesters, their angels, the prophet, the tablets, and all.

He was still trying to figure out whether to panic when he suddenly became aware of new souls streaming into heaven. Someone, somewhere, somehow had opened the gates. Did that mean the prophet lever had been reset? A new prophet hadn’t been activated, but... but this could spell disaster for Metatron’s plan.

He was just about to leave his office to see what he could learn when he heard a quiet huff of amusement. Turning, he found himself joined by a tall, thin, dark-clad male figure.

“Really, Metatron,” said Death. “Did you honestly think you could get away with it so easily?”

Panicked for real, Metatron fled, not even remembering to take a towel with him.

* * *

“Passholdt,” Tarvek echoed wearily over supper, which Gil had had sent down from Castle Wulfenbach for the four of them—Higgs had taken over helping Gadreel while Tarvek came inside to eat. “Yes, I suppose it would make sense for the Geisters to go there.”

“I had Boris ask Selnikov,” said Gil. “Zola was telling the truth about the Jotun brothers. Selnikov went in with them to clean up before Father could find out what had happened.”

“What _did_ happen in Passholdt?” Sam asked, finally awake and cleaned up after his library freak-out. He barely remembered anything from the moment he’d charged into the library until he’d come to in a bathtub somewhere in the guest wing with Dean scrubbing bug splatter out of his hair. He was back in jeans and T-shirt, though, because that was all that was in his go bag and because even if he had another suit waiting back on Castle Wulfenbach, he needed to save it for Tarvek’s coronation the next day.

Tarvek sighed. “We’ll need to get more details out of Agatha and Zeetha. Apparently they were among the members of the circus who actually saw the creatures.”

“So was Oggie, if we can get him out of the Deepdown,” Gil noted.

“In any case—well, no, let me back up a bit. What are revenants in your world?”

“They’re a type of zombie,” Dean replied. “Brought back by necromancy, usually. To kill one, you have to nail it in the coffin with a silver stake.”

“And be careful they don’t throw you into a headstone,” Sam added with a grimace. “First one we fought broke my wrist.”

“Yeah, and then you ripped your jeans filling in the grave.”[1]

“ _Dean_.” Sam hadn’t thought he could be more embarrassed in one evening than the library incident had already made him.

Dean snickered and took a drink of beer. “Good times, good times.”

But Tarvek actually managed to smile before he took a drink of wine, so maybe it was worth it. “That’s what folklore says about revenants in our world, too. And because some people who are infected with slaver wasps become mindless shamblers like zombies, the rest of Europa started calling _them_ revenants. But as you’ve seen, the zombie-like revenants are a statistical minority.”

The brothers nodded and kept eating.

“Well, Snarlantz had been entrusted with most of the hive engines, which generate the queen and the warrior wasps that protect her. The actual slaver swarm comes from the queen. But Snarlantz thought he could improve the hives, so he experimented. One result that actually worked was the spark wasp Lucrezia used on the late baron. But his last experiment... went horribly wrong.”

“How so?” Sam prompted.

“The report from Master Payne said that by the time the circus arrived outside Passholdt, the entire populace had become worse than revenants—pale, deformed, like humanoid spiders or bats. Fast-moving, though easy to kill. Afraid of bright light. And vicious. If the Jägers hadn’t followed them from Zumzum, nobody from the circus would have made it out alive.”

“Croats,” murmured Dean.

“The Croatoan virus didn’t cause deformations, though,” Sam noted.

Dean shrugged his eyebrows, conceding the point.

Gil and Tarvek were frowning in confusion, so Sam explained, “The virus was developed by a demon. Pestilence was supposed to unleash it as part of the Apocalypse chaos. We managed to stop that, barely, but we saw what the virus could do.”

Gil nodded in understanding and looked back at Tarvek. “So all those hive engines Oggie saw in the Deepdown—those had been retrieved from Passholdt?”

“That would be my guess,” Tarvek answered and took another drink. “Like I said, no one involved with Lucrezia’s plans ever trusted me terribly much. The Geisters certainly didn’t. And I really only know about the spark wasp because I’d been keeping tabs on the contents of Father’s secret safe.”

“Well, if there are any revenants there by now, I think the safest thing to do will be to have Agatha order them outside and then fly over with the spray. That might work on the Geisters, too; I don’t know. But we should probably wait to worry about it until after the coronation. Assuming Agatha comes, we can talk to her about it afterward.”

Tarvek took off his pince-nez with a sigh, set them on the table, and rubbed his forehead. “Gil, I know why we’re waiting for dawn, but... oh, I don’t know. Part of me wants to have it over with now; part of me feels like I’ve failed my people so miserably already that I don’t deserve to go through with it at all. And then there’s the Order. They may not acknowledge me even if we _can_ find the bishop. If Gadreel has to officiate—”

“Then we’ll find an archbishop to authenticate one of Gadreel’s miracles.” Gil took a drink of wine and studied his old pal more closely. “Sweet lightning,” he breathed with a frown as he realized the truth. “You’re _afraid_.”

“They’ve tried to kill me three times already, just since we’ve been back,” Tarvek confessed quietly. “The Smoke Knights have already dealt with the assassins, but... well, there’s a reason I assigned Violetta to Agatha. They won’t stop. I’ll never be free of them, always having to look over my shoulder, be on my guard. Though I don’t know why they bother—why I even try to stop them. I’m such a shameful, wretched failure, helping Lucrezia, ignoring what she was doing to people. Those p-poor children... so many orphans... and I did nothing to stop her... it’s all my fault....”

“Wait, no, this—this isn’t like you. _Gadreel!_ ”

Gadreel appeared behind Tarvek’s chair just as Tarvek buried his face in his hands with a sob. “I’m losing my mind, aren’t I? They’ll drive me insane—I-I c-c-can’t—”

“Enough,” Gadreel growled and yanked Tarvek’s chair back from the table, which caused Tarvek to drop his hands in surprise. Then Gadreel touched two fingers to Tarvek’s forehead.

Tarvek gasped and sat back, face clearing. “What—was—was I being an idiot?”

“You were drugged,” Gadreel replied. “It was some kind of depressant, but not one known in our world. I believe the intent was to prompt you to kill yourself.”

“Blue fire,” Tarvek sighed and slumped against the back of his chair. “That’s four.”

“But it can’t be the food,” Dean noted. “We’re all eatin’ the same thing.”

“Could be the wine, though,” Sam added. “Or maybe the wine _glass_.” Both Winchesters were drinking beer, and Gil didn’t seem to be feeling any ill effects.

Gadreel looked at Gil and nodded before looking back at Tarvek and handing him his glasses. “Yes, I believe the drug was placed in your wine alone. That suggests one of the servants, or perhaps the Smoke Knights have been compromised.”

“Servant, more than likely,” Tarvek replied, putting his glasses back on. “A Smoke Knight wouldn’t bother with the wine. They are slipping, though; I’m going to have to have a talk with them.”

“Is there some way you could ward him?” Dean asked.

Gadreel shook his head. “Against evil spirits, yes. Against evil men, no. I shall have to stand guard until morning.”

“I hate to impose,” said Tarvek, “but it would be a great relief, if you don’t mind. Not that I can’t take care of myself, but I _am_ exhausted. Perhaps even until we can root out Lucrezia’s followers among the Knights of Jove—they’ll be most likely to want me dead.”

“Not to mention those nasty cousins you were talking about yesterday,” Sam said. “We took care of von Blitzengaard, but....”

“He was in charge of only one faction. Cousin Leopold is another, just for a start—and he’d be in league with Lucrezia, considering the role Dr. Mongfish played in his conception.”

Dean groaned, put his fork down on his plate, and pushed the plate away.

“And if they can’t kill me,” Tarvek continued, “they’ll probably go back to inciting revolts. It really is going to be touch and go for a while yet.”

“We can worry about that when the time comes,” Gil stated firmly. “The first thing we have to do is get you crowned as Prince of Sturmhalten. Maybe by then the Jägers will have finished excavating the tunnels leading up from the Geisters’ base—Gen. Goomblast thinks they don’t all lead to known parts of the castle.”

“Well, as long as I get to sleep in my own bed tonight, I don’t much care. Speaking of which, where will you three be staying? There’s plenty of space here, obviously; I can order one suite set up for you and one for the Winchesters.”

Gil grimaced. “For security purposes, I should probably go back to Castle Wulfenbach, especially since we know there’s a lunatic poisoner at large. But of course, Dean, if you’d rather stay on the ground—”

Dean shook his head. “It’s all right. I can handle it once we’re up there. Besides, there’s something we need to talk to you about, in private.”

Gil frowned. “All right.”

“SIRE! SIRE!” someone outside started yelling suddenly, and a moment later, a Sturmvoraus trooper burst into the dining room. “Your Highness—Herr Baron—it’s Fräulein Malfeazium. She’s dead!”

Swearing, men and angel jumped up from the table and followed the trooper to the prison, where other soldiers were guarding Zola’s cell but stood aside as soon as the princes arrived. While Tarvek grabbed a torch, the trooper—the jailer, maybe?—unlocked the cell and opened the door, proving Dean’s earlier words prophetic. The air that rushed out of the cell did smell of death... and almonds.

“This is no trick,” Gadreel said sadly. “She is truly dead.”

Frowning, Sam looked down at Zola’s body, and her blue lips confirmed his suspicion. “Cyanide.”

“But she didn’t have any on her,” Gil noted. “The Jägers searched her thoroughly. So someone found out she’d talked and broke in to silence her.”

“No sign of forced entry,” Tarvek observed.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You kiddin’? Sam could pick this lock in five seconds flat.”

Sam took a closer look at the lock. “Three.”

Gil and Tarvek exchanged a disturbed look.

“Plus,” Sam continued, “we already know palace security’s been breached. The same person who drugged Tarvek could have come here before or after that attempt. It’s a similar enough MO. Or they could just as easily have run a hose under the door and pumped hydrocyanic gas into the cell. As fast as it acts, she might not even have had time to call for help.”

Gil ran a hand over his face and sighed. “All right, then, she’s dead. Arrange for a requiem at once; I want her buried before sunrise.”

“Yes, Herr Baron,” the jailer replied and hurried off.

Tarvek closed and locked the door again, then nodded to the guards to resume their earlier position. “You’re not going to try to revive her?” he asked Gil as they started back down the stairs.

Gil shook his head. “Too dangerous, even if Dr. Sun had the equipment. But even if the castle has the hospital itself rebuilt by now, the machinery may take even him quite some time to rebuild and repair.”

Several Wulfenbach soldiers with a stretcher arrived just then, so Tarvek’s group stepped back to let them pass, both on the way to Zola’s cell and on the way down with her body.

As they followed the stretcher toward the cathedral, Tarvek put a hand on Gil’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Gil sighed. “I will be. At least... at least we got some information out of her before she was killed. Now we know where to start looking for the beacon engine. And I suppose we’re going to have to find a way to go to the moon at some point.”

“Actually, we might be able to help you there,” said Dean. “Maybe not with actual plans for a lunar module, but—”

“What? You’ve _been there?!_ ”

“Well, not personally, but....”

“We at least know the basics,” Sam agreed. “The first Americans on the moon landed in 1969. We learned all about it in school.”

“Sweet lightning,” Gil and Tarvek chorused.

“Well, our world is a long way ahead of this one time-wise. I’m more impressed that anyone’s managed to get there before now.”

Tarvek frowned. “Wait, Vrin told Lucrezia something about a gateway from their world to ours that was destroyed. I wonder if that’s anything like the gateway in the cathedral in Mechanicsburg.”

Gil hummed thoughtfully. “If so, it would save us a lot of work, assuming the gateway on the other end remains intact. But we’d still have to find the right settings so we don’t end up on Mars or something, as well as some way to neutralize any guards on the other end. It might not hurt to have the Winchesters’ ideas for a backup.”

Just then the jailer came running back. “Sire, there’s nobody at the cathedral. The priests may still be out dealing with the dead from Mulverschtag. I—”

Tarvek frowned. “Bearers, _halt!_ ” When they obeyed, Tarvek jogged up to the stretcher and lifted the blanket covering the corpse’s face, looked at it a moment, and said, “Right, forget the requiem. Bring wood, salt, and petrol. _Now!_ ”

Dean frowned in turn as the jailer scurried away. “Salt and burn? Why?”

“That’s still Zola’s body,” Tarvek replied, folding the blanket down so that the face remained visible. “But Gil’s right. It’d be too dangerous for _anyone_ to revive her, and I don’t intend to give the Order a chance to try.”

Suddenly, Baby started honking as if someone had set off her alarm, except she didn’t have one.

“I’ve got this,” Tarvek stated, not taking his eyes off Zola’s corpse. “Go.”

“Right,” said Gil, and he and the Winchesters raced back to Baby.

And Baby, it turned out, was doing a _very_ good impression of having an alarm, with her lights flashing in time with the honking, head and tail. As a result, even if it had been closer to twilight than it was, it would have been very easy to see the pale, disheveled, wild-eyed woman Baby had pinned to the wall—and the bomb in the woman’s hand, consisting of what looked like several sticks of dynamite strapped together (but, given where they were and what Sam had already seen, was probably some weird spark invention like a matter destabilizer or anti-matter fragmentation bomb or something). It had some kind of clockwork device attached to it as well, probably a detonator and/or timer. The Winchesters covered the woman at once, and Baby stopped honking when Dean nudged her with his hip.

“Now, then,” Gil began sternly.

But the woman didn’t give him a chance to say more, because she started screaming at him. “YOU! You brainwashed our prince! Heretic! Tyrant! In the name of the Mistress, DIE!!!” She reached toward the bomb.

Before either Sam or Dean could fire, however, Baby let out a V8 roar and rammed the woman. Bone met stone with a sickening crunch, and the woman slumped forward over Baby’s hood like a rag doll.

As Gil started shouting orders for the disposal of the body and of the bomb, Dean frowned at Sam. “‘The Mistress’? What the hell was she talking about?”

“The Geisters worship Lucrezia as their mother goddess,” Sam replied. “Tarvek just told Gil and me over breakfast. We wondered at the time whether anyone other than the Geisters worshipped Lucrezia. Looks like at least some of the revenants did.”

Dean swore.

Soldiers came over to carry out Gil’s orders, and Higgs came running from another direction. “Herr Baron! What happened?”

“Assassination attempt,” Gil replied tersely. “We need to go.”

Baby backed up and held her doors open for them. Barely had they all gotten in, however, when she slammed the doors shut again, locked them, peeled out, and sped out of town the way they’d come.

“Baby, what the hell?” Dean demanded.

“We gotta get out of this place,” sang The Animals, “If it’s the last thing we ever do.”

Sam frowned. “Was that woman trying to plant that bomb on _you_?”

 _Beep-beep_ , Baby answered.

“Why?”

“Where the boys are....”

“She was screaming at _me_ ,” Gil objected, sounding confused.

Sam looked back at him. “I don’t think that matters to Baby. The bomb would have killed all of us.”

“And if I may say so, sir,” Higgs added, “I do believe Miss Impala has a soft spot for you, too.”

The radio hissed with static for a moment—was Baby flustered?—before she settled on “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

Gil smiled and rubbed the armrest. “Thanks, Baby.”

She drove them out to the clearing where Higgs’ ship was still waiting, and from there it was only a short flight back to Castle Wulfenbach. Dean barely had time to get nervous before they docked. Then the crew took Baby back to what was apparently now Dean’s lab, while Gil ordered a pie and some coffee, since they’d missed dessert, and took the brothers to a suite just a few doors down from the lab. The space was far bigger and nicer than their usual cheap motel rooms, with two king-sized beds and a sitting area as well as an en-suite bath, and the wardrobe already held a couple more suits for each of them as well as the clothes they’d worn the day before.

“I thought you might want to be closer to Baby,” Gil explained as the brothers looked around. “It’s yours for however long you’re with us.”

“Dude, this is awesome,” said Dean. “Thanks.”

Dolokhov arrived at about the same time as the pie and joined them, at Gil’s insistence, to give Gil the latest news while Gil and the Winchesters ate their first piece of pie. Tarvek had been right about at least some of the Knights of Jove factions starting revolts, and Gil had to take several minutes to sort out troop movements to deal with them. Fortunately, however, Mechanicsburg appeared to be safe for the moment, so Gil _could_ spare the troops to deal with the rebels. He also dispatched Capt. Dupree with a regiment and several air wings to Passholdt, along with something called Hoomhoffers and a “Mecha Mole” brigade, and sent questors to investigate noblemen whose names Dolokhov had gotten from Selnikov.

When Dolokhov finally left, Gil sighed in relief and turned to the Winchesters. “Now. What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“How much do you know about your past?” Sam asked. “Like, where you were born, anything like that.”

Gil shook his head. “Father didn’t tell me any of that. And I haven’t had a chance to go through his notes yet.”

“Zola thought we were Heterodynes of some sort,” Dean said. “Distant relatives, Agatha’s half-brothers or cousins, Bill and Barry in disguise....”

“She said something about constructs, too,” Sam added. “Guess she thought maybe the Heterodyne Boys might have transplanted their minds into our bodies or something.”

Gil snorted in amusement.

“She was arguing with Lucrezia about it, though,” Dean continued. “Apparently Lucrezia objected that we couldn’t be Bill and Barry because she knew they were missing or something. And Zola’s retort was, ‘The baron came back from Skifander, didn’t he?’”

The smile and the color left Gil’s face. “Sweet lightning.”

“How well do you know Zeetha?”

“Not very. I just met her a few days ago. But that would make so much sense—I don’t know why Father thought she might have been sent to kill me, but the ‘ancient Skifandrian warrior disciplines’ she said were hardly ever taught to outsiders, her face, her hair, her—oh, red _fire_.” Gil buried his face in his hands, blushing hard. “I used that Wacky Weave Destabilizer on my _sister_.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. “Um....”

“No, no, it’s probably not what you’re thinking.” Gil dropped his hands and flopped back against the back of the couch. “I needed to draw a crowd to make sure word would get back to Father that I was going into Castle Heterodyne to help Agatha. He’d given orders for the castle to be destroyed, but I knew he wouldn’t follow through if I was inside. So Zeetha and I staged a fight to attract attention. I was trying to get her with a Jolly Fun Oxidation Enhancer to make her buttons dissolve, but instead I grabbed the Wacky Weave Destabilizer, and... well, it’s a good thing she’d been with the circus long enough to know what those do and was wearing leather underwear.”

Dean slapped a hand over his face, clearly fighting laughter.

“Zeetha is my sister,” Gil repeated incredulously. “My _twin_ sister, probably. That... that makes me Prince of _Skifander_. And Boris _knew_. Confound it, Father, why couldn’t you tell me while you were alive?” Tears welled up in his eyes. “All those years, being bullied for being a commoner, and you could have stopped it just by being honest about who I am. Why were you so afraid that you couldn’t even trust _me_?”

“We went through the same thing with our dad,” Sam confessed quietly. “He thought keeping us in the dark was the best way to keep us safe. But at least he trained us to hunt. We found out a few years ago that we had a half-brother—but Dad hadn’t told him anything at all. And by the time we got there, we were too late. He’d been killed by ghouls.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, and then the angels brought him back to house Michael because I kept refusing to. Couldn’t save him that time, either, though God knows we tried.”

“We did.” Sam shook his head. “We loved Dad. We know he loved us. He did the best he could. But sometimes....”

And finally Gil’s grief caught up to him. He buried his face in his hands again, but this time they were muffling deep, wracking sobs. Sam and Dean let him cry himself out, Dean sitting with him while Sam cleared away the pie and coffee to an end table.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Gil whispered as he finally stopped crying and fumbled for a handkerchief, shaking badly. “I... I didn’t mean....”

“Hey,” Sam interrupted. “It’s okay.”

“Why don’t you stay with us tonight?” Dean offered. “We’ve all gotta be up at the same time anyway.”

“And we should probably go on to bed soon. Got another long day ahead tomorrow.”

Gil nodded and barely managed to stand without his knees buckling. Dean steered him to one bed, and Gil was out like a light before Dean could even get his boots off. The brothers sighed in unison and set about getting ready for bed; Dean locked up and set salt lines while Sam worked out how to set the alarm clock, and after a brief silent argument, Dean took the couch and left the other bed for Sam. Sam really wouldn’t have minded sharing, but evidently Dean felt he needed some space to himself for the night, and Sam couldn’t begrudge him that after everything.

As tired as Sam was, he fell right asleep, but somehow he still managed to wake up a good ten minutes before the alarm was due to go off. He looked around and discovered Tarvek’s wasp eater asleep on Gil’s chest. And when he opened the door to see if he could flag someone down to send for coffee, he found Baby parked as close to the wall as she could, presumably to keep out any assassins who might have tried to break in overnight.

* * *

[1] In our world, this was a blooper reel moment.


	12. Duke of Earl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next several chapters owe a good deal of inspiration to khilari and persephone_kore’s [Agatha’s Bad Plan AU](http://archiveofourown.org/series/52574) and baroque_mongoose’s [Wooster stories](http://archiveofourown.org/users/baroque_mongoose/pseuds/baroque_mongoose/works), all of which I heartily recommend.

“Why are you surprised?” Sam was saying as Gil sluggishly woke the next morning. “She’s _your_ car. It’s only natural she’d share at least some of _your_ personality.”

“Yeah, but parking outside the door?” Dean objected.

“ _Protecting_ us. That’s why you took the couch, wasn’t it? You thought if anybody got in—”

“Shut up, Sam.”

“I’m just saying. You’re a guardian, a protector. And so is Baby.”

Gil peeled his eyes open and blinked a few times, then glanced around with a frown. Where... oh, right, he was in the Winchesters’ suite. And there was... something on his chest.

Then it shifted, let out a wide, squeaky yawn, and chirruped at him. Wasp eater. Right. But how did it... oh, never mind.

“Time’s it?” he asked blearily.

“Too damn early,” Dean replied and brought him some coffee. “Especially to be dealin’ with a car that thinks she’s a damn watchdog. C’mere, Loki.”

The wasp eater chuckled and ran away from Dean, but that did at least get it off Gil’s chest so he could sit up. Dean grumbled something under his breath that sounded like something to do with angels.

Gil frowned. “You named it?”

“Temporarily, anyway,” Sam said. “We’ve ordered breakfast, but do you need us to get anything out of your room?”

Gil took a drink of coffee, which helped, and shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ll send a Lackya or someone.”

Breakfast was mainly eggs and bacon, which Dean ate quickly before going in to shower and dress. However, he did pause long enough to get Gil’s opinion of which suit to wear to the coronation, since Tarvek hadn’t ordered anything formal for them.

“Hm,” said Gil. “Well, I’m not sure he should have, really, certainly no more than black tie. Being Americans, of course, you can’t be expected to know the regulations for court dress, and we can honestly say that you didn’t come here expecting to be invited to a coronation. And being ostensibly in the service of the Lady Heterodyne, you would naturally follow her lead, and Heterodynes in general do as they please and don’t care what anyone else thinks. Father was like that, too, in some ways, but he got away with it because of who he was. I’m not Father; I outrank him, evidently; and he insisted that I actually _have_ court dress, so I’m pretty well out of excuses for not wearing it.”

Dean frowned. “They make you wear a skirt for that?”

“Worse. Knee breeches.”

Sam cleared his throat in surprise. “Ignorant foreigner works for me.”

“Hell, yeah,” Dean agreed.

They did each have a black suit, white waistcoat, and white shirt, however, which would certainly do well enough for Sturmhalten’s court; and at Sam’s suggestion, Gil decided to send to the cordwainer for shoulder holsters for their guns.

“I had one in ’44,” Dean groused as he retrieved his suit from the closet. “Bet it’s at home, though.”

“The new ones shouldn’t take long to make,” Gil replied. “The cordwainer’s clanks do good work, and they’re fast.”

Dean made a non-committal noise and disappeared into the bathroom.

“What about your hatmaker?” Sam asked. “A cowboy hat is the only kind Dean will agree to wear that’s also period correct. Would we have time to get some white hats, kind of like Dean’s?”

“Probably, if we send Dean’s as a prototype for the shape. Just plain white with a plain band?”

“Yeah, felt or straw. I’m sure black’s more formal, but with that type of hat, a black hat means you’re a bad guy.”

“That should be no problem, I think.”

“Awesome, thanks. Although I think I’d rather have a brim that looks more like this.” Sam found a notepad and sketched a hat with a brim that curved up at the sides a bit more and a bit closer to the crown. “That’s more of a classic Stetson; Dean’s, for some reason, looks Australian to me. But the crown’s more or less the same shape.”

Gil nodded. “What else will you need? Ties, cufflinks....”

Sam blew the air out of his cheeks. “I dunno. We’ve probably got some spare ties in the car somewhere, but they’re not... I mean, they’re business ties, not the sort you wear to a coronation. And Dean doesn’t like cufflinks and stuff like that. I don’t know if he’d wear ’em even if you loaned us any.”

“Hm.” Gil got up to examine Sam’s white shirt. “No, these don’t require cufflinks, so let’s not annoy Dean further by suggesting he wear them.”

Sam huffed in amusement. “Dean’s just not a morning person. He’ll get over it.”

“As for ties, I’ve got a couple of ascots that you can borrow. I don’t wear them much.”

“Thanks.”

The Lackya returned at that point with Gil’s court dress and all the trimmings appropriate for a coronation, as well as the lightning stick Gil had rebuilt the previous morning, so Gil sent him on to the cordwainer and the hatter, with further instructions to fetch Gil’s white ascots. Dean finished in the bathroom a few minutes later, so Sam went in to take his shower while Gil finished the last of his eggs and had a second cup of coffee. Gil also brought Dean up to speed on their latest requisitions.

Dean nodded approval at the description of the hats but frowned a little at the mention of ascots. “Not sure that’s gonna go well with a Western suit,” he noted. “Appreciate the offer, don’t get me wrong. But... I dunno, maybe we oughta go with something else.”

“Well, for everyday wear, most gentlemen here wear a brooch at the throat with either the badge of their house or that of the house they serve. I could get you a Heterodyne pin, or....”

Dean’s eyes narrowed as he considered. “No, I’ve got a better idea. Here’s what I need.” He grabbed the notepad and scribbled down a short list of components and a sketch of something. “Hey, Sam? You want a bolo tie?”

“Nah, I’ll just borrow one of Gil’s ascots,” Sam called back.

“All right, suit yourself.” Dean jotted down a couple more notes and poured himself another cup of coffee. “Dunno how we’re gonna pay you back for all this,” he confessed to Gil more quietly.

Gil shook his head. “Dean, don’t even think about it. The help you and Sam have already given Agatha, Tarvek, and me is invaluable. I just wish there were more _I_ could do to repay _you_.”

Visibly embarrassed, Dean ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Doesn’t feel like we’ve done a whole lot.”

“You killed the battering ram. You exorcised Agatha and proved it to Boris. You stopped Anevka. You gave us the key to breaking Lucrezia’s hold on the Sturmhalteners and a way to kill the slime monsters. You helped us capture Zola, and you interrogated her. To say nothing of Gadreel—sweet lightning, I don’t even want to think of the state I’d be in if Father had managed to lock me up and then set off that stasis bomb with Agatha still in Mechanicsburg.”

“You need to marry that girl, dude.”

“I intend to. But I’ve got to outmaneuver Tarvek before I can. That’s the hell of the politics of all this.”

Dean gave him a quizzical look, but Sam came out of the bathroom just then, which meant it was Gil’s turn to shower. He did so, but cleaning up was the easy part. Getting into his court dress was a somewhat fiddly operation, and he found himself heartily wishing Wooster were there. But he wasn’t, and the Winchesters wouldn’t have known where everything went, so dressing himself was the fastest and easiest option.

When at last Gil emerged from the bathroom, the Winchesters were gone, and so were the remains of breakfast. Dean had left a note on the table, however: _Gone to meet Agatha’s blimp. Bay 15._

Blimp. That was a new word. Gil preferred _airship_ , honestly. Be that as it may, Agatha had already arrived, so Gil needed to hurry. He slid into his shoes, unlocked the jewel case that held the coronet he’d never worn—a prince’s coronet; _confound it, Father,_ _you could have told me_ —and put it on, and locked up before going to Bay 15. The Winchesters were outside in the hall, holding their white hats and talking with....

“Sweet lightning,” he breathed before calling, “Wooster!”

“Er,” said Wooster, looking unsure whether he ought to bolt as Gil jogged toward the little group. “Good morning, Herr Baron.”

“What on earth are you doing here? I thought you’d be back in England by now, even without Agatha.”

“I’ve been reassigned to Mechanicsburg, milord.”

“Good thing, too,” Sam said. “You know how we lost all our papers? Cas helped him get us new ones.”

“And he got us _these_ , too,” Dean added with a grin, putting a thumb behind his lapel to show off the badge that matched the design of the centerpiece of his unusual tie. The tie itself was a narrow cord of braided white leather with long silver aglets, and it was held together at the collar by a silver disc engraved with a unicursal hexagram. The badge was the same shape, but cut out rather than engraved. “Dude, we look like Texas Rangers!”

Sam huffed in amusement, and Gil noted that his ascot pin also bore the unicursal hexagram. “I don’t think Henry would like that.”

“Yeah, well, he ain’t here, Sam. _We’re_ the Men of Letters now.”

Wooster frowned. “Who’s....”

“Their paternal grandfather,” Gil explained, having heard the story the day before. “Due to time travel, they hadn’t met him until just a few months ago—and he was younger than they.”

“Ah.” Wooster still looked nervous.

“Red fire, man, you did what I asked. You kept Agatha safe, even if she did insist on going to Mechanicsburg rather than England. Why are you—” And then Gil remembered. “Oh. I screamed at you, didn’t I?”

“Well, yes, you did, rather,” Wooster replied quietly.

Gil sighed heavily. “I wasn’t sure I could trust you or your superiors enough—and you know I was in something of a panic at the time. But I don’t suppose that’s any excuse, really. I’m sorry, Wooster.”

And Wooster finally relaxed somewhat. “For what it’s worth, sir, I didn’t report your remarks to my superiors.”

“Well, considering that Agatha won’t be going to England as anything but the duly acknowledged Heterodyne now, I don’t suppose I’ll have any reason to carry out those threats, which is probably a better thing for me than it is for Albia. So thank you for that.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted anything to happen to her, either, sir. But you were a bit... drastic.”

Gil chuckled. “Classic British understatement there, Wooster. I’ve missed you.”

Wooster smiled and straightened Gil’s jabot for him. Then he noticed the coronet. “I say—”

“Zeetha’s my sister,” Gil explained.

Wooster blinked. “Her Highness hadn’t confessed that aloud until yesterday!”

“The Winchesters and I only figured it out yesterday ourselves. But apparently Father had this made for me despite not trusting anyone but Boris with the information.”

“Great Scott. Well, if it makes you feel any better, it sounded like pure deduction on Princess Zeetha’s part, too.”

“Considering Father thought she’d been sent to kill me, that actually doesn’t surprise me.” Gil suddenly realized that Wooster wasn’t in formal dress, either. “Wait, aren’t you staying?”

“Er, well, I hadn’t planned on it, sir,” Wooster replied, running a hand through his hair.

“Oh, no, no, please do. If anyone asks, you’re my guest. I insist.”

Wooster smiled. “All right, then. Thank you, sir. I should probably stay with Lady Heterodyne’s party, though.”

“Yeah, so should we,” said Sam.

Gil frowned. “Speaking of Agatha, where is she?”

“Talking to Dolokhov last I saw her, sir,” Wooster reported, looking over his shoulder toward the hangar bay. “Discussing funeral arrangements, I believe. And speaking of which,” he added, turning to look Gil in the eye again, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Master Gil. I know the two of you had your problems, and your father wasn’t on the best terms with England, but he truly was a great man.”

Gil swallowed hard and nodded. “Thank you.”

Suddenly he heard a familiar gasp from the bay door. “ _Gil!_ ”

He turned, and for one awestruck moment, he thought Agatha was wearing a wedding dress complete with veil. But then she moved, and the spell... wasn’t broken, exactly, but at least he could see more clearly. Her dress, even lovelier than the most gorgeous work of the House of Worth, was ivory and embroidered with golden gears and trilobites, and her hair was caught up in a net of pearls that couldn’t quite restrain her incorrigible cowlick. Her glasses were sparkling. And she was beaming. He could barely breathe.

“You look _wonderful!_ ” she cried, hugging him.

“You look radiant,” he replied and kissed her. “And I’m glad I’ve got my sword and lightning stick, although I probably shouldn’t kill Tarvek on his coronation day.”

“Oh, stop,” she laughed and backed away. “And don’t you two look dashing!” she added to the Winchesters.

Dean blushed a little and ducked his head with a boyish grin, but Sam answered, “Thank you, Your Ladyship.”

“Oh, just Agatha, please. I gather you’re supposed to be my distant cousins anyway.”

“Master Castiel’s idea,” Wooster explained quietly. “We consulted Castle Heterodyne to find the right link, but it seems the Ht’rok-din’s second son went away with a Viking band and never returned. As there are no records of him after that, it was simple enough to invent a wife for him in Winchester and number him among the dead at Hastings, and as the Heterodynes were already becoming the terror of Europa, that branch of the family took the name ‘Winchester’ instead.”

Dean’s eyebrows went up. “What, so we’re, like, your fifteenth cousins or something?”

“Something like that,” Agatha chuckled. “The castle didn’t have any record of my ancestors attempting to cross over into your universe, so it isn’t likely to be true. But it does make for a good cover story.”

“Well, then, _Cousin_ Agatha,” Sam said with a smile and a slight bow, “you look lovely.”

“Thank you, Sam.” Then she looked at Dean expectantly.

“I’m not sayin’ anything in front of your boyfriend,” Dean deadpanned.

Everyone laughed at that.

“ _There_ you are!” Violetta called and came charging out of the hangar bay in a dress the same shade of purple as her usual Smoke Knight uniform. “I’m amazed you haven’t dragged that train through a dozen puddles of oil by now.”

“Well, it’s hardly my fault you and Zeetha were busy talking with Higgs, is it?” Agatha returned. “Speaking of which, Gil—”

“Yes, he may escort Zeetha,” Gil replied before she could finish the question. “And I’ll escort you. Boris is coming, too, and he can escort Violetta if you’d like. But what about Maxim and Dimo?”

“Advance security,” Wooster replied. “Since the Jägers are already in Sturmhalten, we sent them ahead to check the cathedral and send word to Oggie to join them. We’ve sent Krosp with them as well. But if I may say so, Master Gil, I’m surprised you’re not bringing a larger contingent.”

“Aren’t I?” Gil asked mildly, putting an arm around Agatha’s shoulders.

Agatha frowned. “Now wait a minute—”

“You’re nobody’s puppet,” Gil interrupted. “You beat my father handily. But I did publicly declare that you _are_ under my protection, and we still need to sort out all the limits of Mechanicsburg’s autonomy and trade and so forth. So since you _happen_ to be my guest this morning, we’ll go together.”

Agatha huffed. “All right, but we get announced separately.”

“Deal.”

“And we discuss terms this afternoon.”

“Boris has a draft treaty ready for us to look over. But I don’t expect you to sign it until you’ve taken it back to discuss with at least Mamma Gkika.”

Agatha narrowed her eyes. “Why Mamma Gkika?”

“She’s a general and a shrewd businesswoman, and I trust her to have your best interests at heart. And no, it will not include a provision requiring you to marry me. I don’t want Punch to hit me again,” Gil added wryly, letting her go and putting a hand to his head in remembered pain.

Agatha huffed and returned the wry smile. “I’m sorry, Gil. I do want to trust you. I just... didn’t know how it would look.”

“I understand, believe me. But like I said, the world needs to know that I’m on your side. Even after the siege, there will still be powers that want to control you. They just won’t use force next time if they’re smart.” Gil sighed. “Besides, most of the Diplomatic Corps is out delivering announcements and trying to put out fires, and there’s no _way_ I’m bringing Dupree to this affair.”

Sam and Wooster heaved identical sighs of relief.

Dean frowned. “Wait, who’s....”

“The pirate queen,” Sam answered.

“Oh. Yeah. Bad idea.”

Boris finally emerged from the hanger bay, running one hand through his hair while checking his watch with another. “Ah, there you are, Your Highness!” he called when he spotted Gil. “We’re ready for departure in two minutes.”

Gil nodded and offered Agatha his arm, and she took it. But in the end it was Dean who grabbed the train of Agatha’s dress to keep it out of harm’s way and Sam who gallantly escorted Violetta to the airship, where Zeetha and Higgs were waiting. Higgs was in high uniform, and Zeetha... well, clearly, Zeetha had gotten Mamma Gkika’s fashion advice for what Europans considered court dress and gone for some sort of compromise between Jägerdame and Skifandrian. Fortunately, she also had a cloak.

“Heyyyy,” Zeetha called when she saw Gil. “Don’t _you_ look sharp!”

“Erm,” said Boris, who apparently hadn’t noticed Zeetha before and was trying not to be scandalized. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure—”

“Ah, allow me,” Gil interrupted. “Boris, this is my sister Zeetha, Royal Princess Guardian of Skifander. Zeetha, my chief administrator, Boris Dolokhov.”

The brief moment in which Boris looked ready to faint was priceless.

And so was the fact that Zeetha immediately came over to hug Gil. “Figured it out, huh?” she breathed in his ear.

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “And I’m sorry about the Wacky Weave thing.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad I found you, brother. And I’m not gonna kill you—unless you hurt Agatha, of course.”

“I know. And I won’t.”

Boris had recovered his composure by the time Zeetha pounded Gil’s back and let go. “I do see the resemblance now. My apologies, Princess Zeetha.”

“It’s all right,” Zeetha told him with a disconcerting grin. “The baron was terrible about keeping secrets. How were you to know his wife was queen of the jungle?”

Boris harrumphed, and it was all Gil could do to keep from laughing. “ _If_ Your Highnesses are ready....”

“Let’s go,” said Agatha. “We really shouldn’t keep Tarvek waiting.”

So they trooped onto the airship, with Zeetha trading barely appropriate jibes with Dean and Boris trying valiantly not to hyperventilate. But at least she proved enough of a distraction that Boris didn’t notice Wooster trying to blend in with the paneling.

“I can tell her to stop,” Agatha murmured to Gil, “but I’m not sure how much good it will do.”

Gil chuckled. “No, let her wind him up. It serves him right for keeping secrets.”

The coronation itself, quite frankly, was boring. Given the givens, the crowd was fairly small, mostly nobles from neighboring fiefs and however many of the Knights of Jove were willing to at least look like they supported Tarvek’s claim. Tarvek had somehow managed to run down a bishop, though, so Gadreel was free to join the Heterodyne-Wulfenbach party along with Gen. Goomblast and Gen. Khrizhan. Gadreel ended up between the Jägers and Wooster, who handed him something that Gil assumed must be identity papers and maybe a Men of Letters badge, but none of them really had time to talk. Maxim, Oggie, and Dimo were seated directly behind Gil and Agatha and kept up a _sotto voce_ running commentary on everyone’s hats until time for the ceremony to start, which was rather entertaining. But for the most part, it was the usual sort of ceremony, if a bit pared down to comport with the wartime setting, with the usual sorts of choral numbers and Latin prayers and investitures and whatnot...

... right up to the point where Tarvek, without warning, called Gil and Agatha up to stand witness, then put his right hand on the holiest relic present—the sword of St. Glamdring—and repeated the oath he’d sworn in Mulverschtag the day before. Gasps went up all over the cathedral, probably from dignitaries who hadn’t seen his speech in Mulverschtag. Gil wasn’t sure whether such a move was commendable or reckless in the extreme, but either way, the oath was doubly binding now. And Tarvek was probably already gearing up for the long talk, or rather screaming match, with the Knights of Jove that he’d just made inevitable. Gil didn’t envy him that... but at the same time, it might be better that he force the confrontation now rather than trusting to his usual underhanded methods, which were part of the reason they were in this mess to begin with.

In any case, Gil managed to come up with a more official sounding statement of acceptance than he’d rattled off on the spur of the moment in Mulverschtag, although he stopped short of making any kind of vow of his own. Then he turned to Agatha, who suddenly looked rather pale but still determined and regal.

“I have heard it said,” Agatha began slowly, “that Euphrosynia Heterodyne betrayed the House of Valois and destroyed the peace of Europa. What the truth might be, I do not know. I do know that Lucrezia Mongfish betrayed the House of Heterodyne and devastated Europa on a scale Euphrosynia could never have dreamed. She caused my brother’s death and my father’s disappearance. Her servants enslaved the people of Sturmhalten and murdered the people of Passholdt. She betrayed the House of Sturmvoraus by attempting to murder you. And worst of all, she ordered her servants to force her into my mind so that she could use her own daughter to enslave all Europa, beginning with the late Baron Wulfenbach.”

There were more gasps, louder and more horrified. Gil really wanted to go to her, show his support in some tangible way and offer some comfort, but he didn’t dare. He only represented the empire. She was the Heterodyne building up to righteous anger—and she could hardly have looked more powerful and independent if she were ten feet tall and glowing.

“I will swear no oath,” she went on with Spark-edged steel in her voice, “for I need none to strengthen my resolve. Yet I gratefully accept your own sworn intent, Prince Tarvek, for I know it is not offered lightly, nor is the might of the empire idly pledged. There would have been no breach of friendship between the House of Wulfenbach and the House of Heterodyne but for my mother’s crimes.”

“That is so,” Gil acknowledged.

“Then let’s hold the past forgiven,” Agatha concluded, sounding as stupendously dangerous as her grin looked, “and go make Europa free.”

Gil and Tarvek grinned back just as dangerously, and the cheer that erupted was _almost_ loud enough to drown out the Jägers’ roar of “VE HUNT!” and the Winchesters’ bellow of “OORAH!”

The ceremony ended well before mid-morning, so everyone adjourned to one of the castle’s reception halls, where Tarvek had arranged some light refreshments—fruit and pastry, mostly—and cold tea rather than champagne. Agatha’s three Jägers stationed themselves around the room while Gadreel and Violetta ‘disappeared’; the Jäger generals went one way to mingle, Boris went another, and Zeetha, Higgs, and Krosp a third. But Wooster and the Winchesters stuck close to Gil and Agatha, which was just as well, because their group was the one for which Tarvek made a beeline immediately upon his arrival.

“Oh, Agatha!” he exclaimed, hugging Agatha and spinning her around once. “You were astounding.”

“I meant every word,” she replied.

“I know you did, and I adore you for it. Thank you.” He kissed her cheek and let her go, then noticed Wooster. “Wooster! Surprised to see you here, old man.”

“I invited him,” Gil stated as Tarvek shook Wooster’s hand. “He’s Agatha’s aide now, y’know.”

Wooster’s eyes glinted with mirth and understanding, but he kept a straight face as he said, “Yes, quite so, Your Highness.”

“And doing a wonderful job of it, too,” Agatha added.

“In fact,” Gil went on, “he’s doing such a good job, I expect she’ll want him to sit in on all our councils.”

Tarvek blinked and lowered his voice. “I thought you said—”

“I did.”

“But won’t he—”

“Tell Albia everything,” Gil agreed just as quietly, then looked Wooster in the eye. “I’m counting on it.”

Wooster blinked. “Sir?”

“Albia may want the empire off balance, but she won’t want war. That would be a threat to England just as much as it is to us. She needs to know that we’re doing everything we can to keep the peace, and she needs to know that we’re not her enemies. You’re the only man I trust to tell her the whole truth.”

Wooster did smile at that and bowed slightly. “Very good, Master Gil. Or should I say Your Highness?”

“Please don’t,” Gil said with a grimace, the coronet suddenly feeling very heavy.

Tarvek eyed it skeptically. “Yes, about that, I’d been meaning to ask and hadn’t had a chance yesterday. Did that herald actually get all that right? ‘Baron Wulfenbach, Ruler of Europa, Defender of the Pax....’”

“Royal Prince of Skifander,” Gil confirmed. “Boris had the list, and Zeetha confirmed the phrasing.”

“Great heavens. Skifander’s not on Mars, is it? Remember you thought you might be a Martian prince?”

“Zeetha can’t remember, but all things considered, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Tarvek chuckled and shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t surprise me, either. Speaking of rank, though,” he continued, turning to the Winchesters, “hasn’t Agatha given you men titles _yet?_ There are bound to be some openings among the Knights of Jove before the day’s out, if you’d care to join.”

“Oh! I know this one!” Agatha answered with unusual excitement before either Winchester could say anything. “‘No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.’ Article I, Section 9, Clause 8.”

Both brothers looked at her oddly. “How did you know that?” Sam asked.

“Kevin found a copy of your Constitution in his backpack. It’s got the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation with it, too. _Fascinating_ reading, I must say.”

“And not at all accurate,” said Wooster stiffly. “Even allowing for the differences between worlds—”

“Oh, I’m sure Her Undying Majesty could never be accused of sending swarms of officers to harass your colonies and eat out their substance,” she interrupted blithely. “She probably has clanks for that.”

Wooster coughed and attempted not to look flustered.

“But seriously, Gil, when you have the time, I think you ought to look at this pamphlet,” she went on. “Kevin and I agree, and so does Castiel, that it would take some adapting for the empire, but maybe setting some ground rules and guaranteeing the commons some basic freedoms would give people the incentive to stop supporting the Knights of Jove. It might even give us a way to protect the commons against the worst kind of sparks.”

Tarvek raised an eyebrow. “‘Commons’? Whatever happened to calling them ‘peasants’?”

Agatha put her hands on her hips. “Well, excuse me, but I didn’t exactly grow up in a big fancy palace like you did. Until about two months ago, I _was_ a commoner for all I knew.”

“So was I, in case you forgot,” Gil sniped. “Even _you_ thought so until Tuesday.”

Tarvek threw up his hands. “All right, all right, fine.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dean broke in. “Why did Kevin give you a copy of the Constitution in the first place? I know he’s an Advanced Placement poli-sci nerd, but....”

“Oh, I asked him to,” Agatha explained. “I’ve never had a chance to study politics before, you see, but he has.”

Gil nodded. “I would like to look at that, thanks. So would Boris, I expect. Send a copy to me and one to Tarvek when you get the chance. And before you go, I’ll send someone to get you a set of the government textbooks from the school. I’ll get a set for you, too,” he told Tarvek.

Tarvek huffed. “As if I had anything to learn from your father’s propaganda.” But Gil could tell he was pleased.

“Well, look, if we are going to set up some kind of constitution, it would be a good idea for us all to at least have the same set of documents and theories to draw on. And Agatha’s got a point. A constitution would be strong evidence for the argument that the people of the empire are better off staying in it than throwing in with a nobleman who could turn out like the Gilded Duke or the Polar Ice Lords.” Gil decided not to bring up Albia’s mind control; taxing fire in Scandinavia and hunting peasants for sport were certainly despotic enough activities to make his point. And he fancied Wooster looked faintly relieved.

“It might and it might not,” said Tarvek. “Remember, the Knights of Jove have been working overtime the last several years to convince the people that the Storm King is the only solution to their problems. A new law code may not be enough to counteract that.”

“Maybe not, but it would at least buy us some time.”

“Besides, the Fifty Families will never accept the no-nobility clause.”

“So we leave it out,” Agatha said. “Honestly, Tarvek....”

“What you need is a template,” Sam interjected. “Our Constitution can give you that, and then you can change what you have to. There’s nothing in our Constitution that would address the rights of constructs, for example, but you’re probably going to need to because they are sentient beings and a lot of them used to be human. Same thing with sentient clanks.”

That reminded Gil that he needed to check on Punch and Judy, but that could wait until they got back to Castle Wulfenbach and had a spare moment. Zoing was quite capable of monitoring them until then.

“Plus, the Constitution’s just a basis,” Dean added. “You’re still gonna need criminal codes, civil codes, tax codes, all that jazz. What the Constitution does is set up the structure of the government and tell that government what it can and can’t do.”

Sam nodded. “Exactly. Like the First Amendment: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’ So, like, Agatha couldn’t ban Heterodyne Boys books or Heterodyne shows just because she doesn’t like the way they portray Bill and Barry.”

“Well, I wouldn’t anyway,” Agatha said, amused. “But it’s a good illustration. And neither, I take it, could Congress, which would have the power to pass such a law. As part of the executive branch, all I could do would be to ask Congress to ban those books.”

“Right, and if they did pass that law, the publisher could sue the government, and the judiciary has the power to declare that law unconstitutional. Since the Constitution is the highest law of the land, any unconstitutional law has to be thrown out. I mean, it’s not a perfect system, but it’s worked for us for over 220 years.”

“Geek,” Dean muttered affectionately.

Gil hummed thoughtfully. “I forgot you studied law. We’ll probably need your input as well as Kevin’s.”

Sam nodded. “Sure. That was a long time ago, but I’ll do what I can.”

“Just what we need,” Tarvek snarked. “A law spark.”

Gil glared at him. “Don’t you have guests to see to?”

Tarvek chuckled. “Actually, I do, so I suppose I ought to. I’ll see you all later.” He made a show of kissing Agatha’s hand before he left.

“Hmph,” said Gil and moved closer to her. “Speaking of constructs, though, I should be able to send Punch and Judy back to Mechanicsburg with you.”

Agatha looked relieved. “Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you again for saving them. You didn’t have to.”

“Well, at the time, it seemed like the only decent thing to do. And then when I thought I’d lost you....”

“He worked rather harder at it than I thought he should,” Wooster confessed. “But I didn’t dare try to stop him.”

“You helped me quite a lot, Wooster, and don’t think for a moment I didn’t appreciate it. I know I almost never said so, but if it hadn’t been for you, I think I would have gone right over the edge.”

“Her Majesty would hardly have stood for that, sir,” Wooster deadpanned, but the sparkle in his eyes gave away his true feelings on the matter.

“Well, neither would I,” Agatha said stoutly, “and you’ve been a great help to me, too.” And she leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek, which flustered him worse than he could hide.

Gil chuckled. “Oh, just to warn you, Agatha, Punch can speak now. I’m not sure how _well_ , because he wasn’t up to saying more than a few words before I had to put him back in the reanimation tank for the final stages of healing, but at least he has a voice.”

Agatha took a deep breath and nodded. “Thanks for telling me. That’ll take some getting used to.”

“Probably will for him, too.”

Just then Gen. Goomblast walked up. “Ah, de Vinchesters! Nize hats, yentlemen.”

The Winchesters blinked. “Uh, thanks?” Dean replied.

Goomblast grinned, then bowed to Agatha. “Iz goot to zee you, Miztress.”

“Good to see you, too, General,” Agatha returned. “Have you any news for me?”

“Yah, but mebbe ve vait und tok beck on Kestle Vulfenbach, hey?”

“Of course. That’s very sensible.”

“Your quarters are still available to you, Gen. Goomblast,” said Gil, “or we can meet on the support ship you commandeered.”

Goomblast chuckled. “Hyu vaz alvays goot to us, Herr Baron. Tenk hyu. De old office iz fine.”

“All right, then. Are we supposed to stay for lunch, or....”

Just then raised voices caught everyone’s attention, followed by the distinct sound of a sword being drawn. Gil looked around and saw Tarvek pointing his sword at a wild-eyed nobleman with streaks of white in his dark hair and beard.

“You DARE question me, Maganox?!” Tarvek bellowed.

“That Heterodyne witch has addled your mind!” the nobleman roared. “The Men of Letters? PAH! There is no such society! The Mistress—”

“The Mistress is a false goddess, and she is dead. You know what happened in Passholdt, yet you believe her promise of reward if you can succeed where Snarlantz failed? You old fool! She cannot even protect you from Wulfenbach!”

“Then let us see your new friends protect you from THIS!” Maganox, whoever he was, pulled some sort of device out of his coat and threw it at Tarvek.

But Gadreel, appearing beside Tarvek even more easily than Violetta appeared in front of Agatha, vaporized the device harmlessly before striding up to Maganox and pressing the palm of his right hand flat against Maganox’s forehead. Though Gil couldn’t see what happened next, Maganox screamed... and seconds later, he fell dead, with only smoking sockets where his eyes had been.

Seconds after that, Gil and Agatha were surrounded by a wall of friends. Wooster and the Winchesters had their guns out, Zeetha her swords, Violetta her blow gun, Higgs his fists, Krosp some kind of death ray, and the Jägers... well, were Jägers. Gil readied his lightning stick, and Agatha produced the original lightning stick from somewhere and readied it herself. Boris hadn’t brought more than one sword himself, and he was on the other side of the room talking with the _Bürgermeister_ of Mulverschtag, but he drew that sword with one hand and pushed the _Bürgermeister_ behind him with the other three.

“Anybody got any more bright ideas?” Dean challenged.

There was a tense pause before something like fifty men in the white and gold of the Knights of Jove roared and charged, and all hell broke loose. Tarvek threw his sword to Boris, drew a gun of his own, and made a break for Gil and Agatha with Gadreel hard on his heels and Smoke Knights coming out of the woodwork to defend him. Boris followed Tarvek but was jumped by three men at once; he killed two, but the third almost knifed him before Wooster shot the attacker, much to Boris’ shock. But then Gil lost track of who was where, having to focus on the assailants who were likely to dodge bullets or blow darts. He did fire his lightning stick several times, as did Agatha, but he really couldn’t keep track of who was shooting whom. All he knew in the end—all that mattered—was that Tarvek, Gadreel, and Boris had reached the rest of the group safely, and only the attackers lay dead. Several Smoke Knights looked injured, but none of the other guests were hurt.

“You all right?” Gil asked Tarvek as the smoke cleared.

Tarvek nodded. “Saves us some investigative work, anyway.”

“We should go.”

“Agreed. I’ll come up after lunch if you think you’ll have news.”

“Probably. Gadreel, do you mind staying?”

“Not at all,” Gadreel replied. “These may not be the last.”

Tarvek nodded again. “Thanks, old man. Agatha?”

“I’m all right,” Agatha confirmed, pushing up her glasses. “And I _will_ expect to see you after lunch.” The implied _Take care of yourself_ couldn’t have been clearer.

Tarvek smiled. “After lunch, then.”

Gadreel accepted Tarvek’s sword from Boris and stepped away from the ring of defenders, letting Tarvek out, and then the group closed ranks again and left the palace warily. None of them let down their guard until they were safely aboard the airship, which had been closely guarded by Jägers the entire time, and headed back to Castle Wulfenbach.

In the air, Boris looked over at Wooster. “You saved my life,” he said quietly, sounding somewhat skeptical.

Wooster raised an eyebrow and looked Boris in the eye. “Owed you that, didn’t I?” Then he walked away, leaving Boris staring after him in confusion.

“Iz notting to vorry about, Herr Baron,” Gen. Khrizhan rumbled in Gil’s ear. “Vos a mizunderstandink, but Hy tink it vill be all right now.”

“I hope so,” Gil sighed. “We’ve got enough problems without any of my friends trying to kill each other.”

“Hy dun tink ve gotz to vorry about dot vit dem. Dot Dupree, on de odder hand....”

Gil grimaced. “Yes, well, something tells me I’ll have plenty of work to keep _her_ busy for a while, too.” And the further away from Wooster, the better, he supposed.


	13. Monster Mash

Sam walked over to Wooster as the air shuttle flew toward Castle Wulfenbach. “What was all that about?”

Wooster raised an eyebrow. “What, with Dolokhov?”

“Yeah.”

“He happened to be present when I let myself into the Jäger generals’ meeting to warn them of the late baron’s plans to destroy Castle Heterodyne and kill Lady Heterodyne. In other circumstances, they could easily have killed him as a threat to her. I didn’t think about that until it was too late. So I’ve paid that debt now, and given him something to puzzle on into the bargain.”

“Mm. More like burning coals, probably.”

“Well, we may never be friends, but we’re hardly enemies. Still, as you say.”

“Haven’t had much chance to make that work for us, but most of our enemies aren’t human anyway. At least until we got here.”

“Yes, so I gather. And it’s humans you’ll have to watch out for here, especially after this incident. It couldn’t be helped, but now you’ll have the Knights of Jove curious, at best. And they’re not wrong about the Men of Letters. I had been counting on the dearth of information in Europa about America for cover, but now....”

“We can prove Barry Heterodyne knew about us. I’m sure there are Winchesters mentioned in his journal, and... what name did Gadreel take?”

“Haggerty.”

Sam nodded slowly. “Haggerty was the Man of Letters who spent the last years of his career trying to find Dorothy after she disappeared with the Wicked Witch.” At Wooster’s confused frown, Sam shook his head. “Never mind. Point is, he’s probably mentioned in Barry’s journal, too. So we can at least make it _look_ like Barry knew us personally.”

Wooster raised an eyebrow. “If you’re given the chance.”

Sam huffed and smiled. “If we aren’t, I’ll be surprised.”

The shuttle docked just then, and as soon as everyone got off, Gil sent Wooster and Higgs “to check on that experiment I left running” (meaning, Sam assumed, the Frankenstein-esque humanoid constructs he’d seen briefly in the secret lab). The rest of the group headed toward a part of the ship Sam hadn’t seen before, with Dolokhov and Gil getting updates on the revolts further afield as they walked and both Agatha and Krosp chiming in with strategy suggestions. Actually, it looked like the Jägers, Zeetha, and Dean all had ideas as well, but either they couldn’t get a word in edgewise or someone else made the same suggestion before they could. And when that was taken care of, Gil and Agatha started talking about the preliminary treaty and whether it should be made permanent or renegotiated after peace was restored, and Sam stole a glance at Dean just as Dean’s eyes glazed over.

Sam was about to ask Gil whether Higgs and Wooster might need the Winchesters’ help when Gadreel appeared in the middle of the hallway, directly in front of Gil and Agatha. The whole group stopped short, and Dolokhov swore in Russian.

“Please forgive the intrusion, Gilgamesh,” Gadreel said. “Tarvek has called the Knights of Jove to council and wishes Sam and Dean to join them. He believes there may be questions about the Men of Letters, and he would not ask me to lie about what I do not know.”

“I suppose he is smarter than he looks,” Gil replied. “But it’s up to the Winchesters. They’re not mine to command, although we don’t particularly need them for this.”

Dean shrugged, so Sam said, “Sure, we’ll come. Could you go back to Mechanicsburg, though, and get Barry Heterodyne’s journal? Cas said they’d brought a copy.”

Gadreel bowed slightly and left, then reappeared a moment later next to Sam and handed him the journal. He waited just long enough for Sam to tuck the journal into his coat before flying both brothers back down to Sturmhalten Castle, landing with the three of them standing next to Tarvek’s chair at the front of a large meeting room. Only about half of the seats were filled with men wearing white and gold, and maybe a quarter of the men present had hair the same color as Tarvek’s. Most of them were startled.

“I _say!_ ” exclaimed one man. “Most impressive, chaps! Was it done with magnets? I’ve a theory—”

“Wolkerstorfer,” Tarvek interrupted.

Wolkerstorfer didn’t seem fazed. “Oh, but science—”

“Can wait, my lord count. Maganox questioned the existence of the Men of Letters. I don’t want any of you making the same fatal mistake. That’s why I’ve asked these men to join us. May I present Mr. Sam Winchester, Mr. Dean Winchester, and Mr. Gadreel Haggerty from America. Gentlemen, the Knights of Jove, or at least a part of them.”

“No, it’s not done with magnets,” Dean stated. “It’s done with mirrors.”

Count Wolkerstorfer looked disappointed.

“All right, you got questions, ask ’em.”

“That badge of yours,” said another man, adjusting his glasses and peering at Dean’s lapel. “The, er....”

“Aquarian Star,” Sam supplied. “It’s the symbol of the Men of Letters.”

“And what _are_ the Men of Letters? You’re all sparks, I suppose.”

“Some of us are, and some of us aren’t,” Dean answered. “Plenty of smart people don’t have the Spark.”

“And intelligence alone isn’t sufficient for what we do,” Sam added. “Even sparks don’t always have what it takes.”

“Yes, what _do_ you do?” asked a third man.

“We’re preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that man does not understand.”

“It’s a secret society,” Dean continued, “and its existence has been a closely guarded secret for generations. We didn’t know about it until our grandfather filled us in. We’re legacies—but there’s only a handful of other members, and only a couple of people beyond that who know we exist. Most Americans haven’t even heard of us.”

“But Barry Heterodyne had.” Sam produced the journal, showing the embossed trilobite on the cover plainly, and the knights either sat up straighter or raised eyebrows or leaned forward. “In fact, he left us this journal when he came back to the States after the war with The Other.”

“How do we know that’s Heterodyne’s journal?” someone further back asked. “How do we know you’re not just making things up?”

On a hunch, Sam handed the journal to Gadreel, who opened it and began to read. “‘Haggerty has asked for more particulars about the Dyne. Unfortunately, the castle had some significant differences of opinion with Bill and me, so many of its secrets were withheld from us, including the location of the Dyne’s source and what is done with the energy it generates. Winchester speculates that the water may be radioactive, given its mutagenic properties, but of course we have no way to test that hypothesis here, nor does it explain other tales I have heard growing up in Mechanicsburg.’” Gadreel turned the journal around and held it up for everyone else to see. “If you know Lord Heterodyne’s handwriting, you can see this is no forgery.”

A couple of the older knights got up to come examine the journal and hemmed and hawed for a moment before pronouncing it definitely Barry Heterodyne’s handwriting. Some of the others looked considerably happier about that than others did. Dean crossed his arms and smirked.

“I still find it difficult to believe that no one’s heard of you,” said one of the more skeptical knights as the older knights sat down again.

“Well, hell,” Dean returned, “when’s the last time someone from Europa actually made it to the US?”

The knights exchanged uncertain looks.

“The last was Barry Heterodyne,” Tarvek stated. “Before that, the Heterodyne Boys were the first in a very long time—in fact, I don’t think anyone had managed it since the time of the Storm King.” He shot the Winchesters a sidelong look. “When the American colonies declared their independence, there was little Albia could do about it, considering that she had her hands full with the Long War.”

That... explained a lot about Wooster’s reaction to Kevin’s copy of the Declaration of Independence, actually, and also about why people kept calling Queen Albia _Her Undying Majesty_. When things were calmer, Sam was definitely going to have to dig into a history book to find out just how different things were in this world and just how old Queen Albia really was.

“I keep telling you,” Wolkerstorfer piped up, “with a big enough magnet—”

“Oh, shut up,” said the man next to him.

“But how did the Heterodynes know about this society,” pressed the skeptical knight, “if its existence is such a closely-guarded secret?”

“I told you,” Dean replied. “We’re legacies.”

There was a pause while the knights filled in the gaps, or at least tried to.

“We’re descended from the Ht’rok-din’s second son,” Sam lied. “Our grandfather never told us exactly how he made contact with the Heterodyne Boys, but clearly he felt they deserved to share in that legacy with the rest of our side of the family.”

“Barry also made sure we had a way to get here if Agatha ever needed us,” Dean added. “And she did, so here we are.”

“Are you?” one of the other skeptical knights taunted, getting up and coming toward them. “How do we know you’re not a projection or some other sort of illusion? I don’t think you’re even real humans at all!” He took a swing at Dean—and almost before Sam could blink, Dean had the guy on the ground, immobilized and with his head in Dean’s hands.

“Real enough for you,” Dean growled, “or am I gonna have to snap your neck?”

“Yes! Yes!” the knight panted, panicking. “I yield!”

Dean’s lip curled, but he let the knight up, though not without ‘accidentally’ booting the guy in the ribs as he stood.

“That was uncalled for,” Tarvek chided, though Sam suspected he didn’t actually mean it.

“Gettin’ sick o’ people tryin’ to kill us,” Dean snarled, returning to his place. “Reminds me of Purgatory. Except there, the monsters actually attack you directly—none of this poisoning, backstabbing, bomb-planting business.”

“Pretty sad when a vampire’s more of a man than a knight is,” Sam remarked, mostly to see who flinched. Several of the skeptical knights did, but so did some of the knights who’d managed to project an air of disinterest and neutrality on the whole question of the Men of Letters’ existence. And Sam was reasonably sure Tarvek noticed.

All Tarvek said, however, was, “Well, I believe I’ve kept you gentlemen away from Lady Heterodyne long enough. Thank you for coming, and I’ll be seeing you this afternoon.”

Sam and Dean nodded, and Gadreel handed the journal back to Sam before flying the brothers back to Castle Wulfenbach. They landed in a luridly decorated meeting room, where Gil, Agatha, and the Jäger generals were studying a map that was spread out on the conference table in the middle of the room.

“No, I think Gil’s right,” Agatha was saying. “The Jägers are meant for the front lines, and so far there’s nobody left under Sturmhalten for you to fight. I think our best bet is going to be clanks equipped with cameras and some sort of wireless feed back to a display in a command center either on or above the surface.”

“On,” Gil decided, “and as close to one of the tunnel entrances as we can manage. If Tarvek doesn’t want it in the palace, we can set up in the courtyard outside the prison. But since we don’t know how far the tunnels extend, there’s no sense stretching the wireless range too far.”

“Makes sense,” Dean agreed, startling Gil and Agatha. “Either of you ever made a cathode ray tube before?”

“No,” they chorused.

“All right, you two work on the clank. I’ll build the monitors.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “CRT? Seriously?”

Dean snorted. “You think I can make liquid crystal here, dude?”

“No, I’m just... surprised you even know how to make a CRT.”

“Haven’t exactly made one from scratch before. But remember that summer I worked at the TV repair shop?”

“Oh, yeah. That was a lifetime ago.”

“Well, at least I’ve got experience fixing the things, so I know how they go together. Trick’s gonna be getting the vacuum low enough.”

Sam turned to Gadreel. “And _that’s_ our cue to hang out somewhere else for a while.”

Gadreel smiled, and everyone else laughed.

Then Gen. Khrizhan checked his watch. “Ektually, Hy tink ve better hef zum lonch bevor anyvun buildz anyting.”

Gil nodded. “And after lunch, Sam, I’d appreciate it if you’d join Higgs and Wooster. They may need an extra pair of hands to get Punch and Judy ready for transport.” _And you already know where the lab is_ remained unspoken.

Sam nodded. “Sure, that’s no problem.”

Gen. Goomblast went to the door to order lunch brought in, along with Zeetha, Violetta, Krosp, and the other Jägers. Sam, Dean, and Gadreel briefed the others on what had happened with the Knights of Jove while they waited for the food to arrive. Over lunch, Gil and Agatha returned the favor with regard to the preliminary treaty, the most immediately relevant provisions of which were that the Jägers were going to remain seconded to the Wulfenbach army and that certain projects like an asylum for truly certifiable sparks and a breeding and research center for the Vespiary Squad would be officially sanctioned by the empire but built in Mechanicsburg. That led to some wacky story swapping, especially involving wasp eaters—Theo and Sleipnir had gotten stampeded by the Mechanicsburg weasels, among other incidents—and by the end of the meal, even Gadreel, who didn’t laugh, still looked as highly amused as everyone else.

The hilarity was cut short by Dolokhov’s arrival with Tarvek and a couple of Smoke Knights in tow. “I’m glad _someone’s_ having fun,” Tarvek grumbled. “I’ve still got about thirty of Lucrezia’s loyalists in the Order to ferret out—we had to kill five more before the meeting was over. At least von Bulen managed to rally the rest to my cause by pointing out that the late baron _had_ acknowledged me publicly, and I did convince them to swear a greater oath rejecting Lucrezia than they’d sworn when Father made them agree to serve her.”

“Do you expect an attack?” Gil asked.

Tarvek sighed and sat down. “Yes and no. Depends on whether Leopold listens to Grandma—I’m sure she’ll want everyone behind me, whatever Grandfather thinks. What’s more worrying is that Seffie wasn’t there.”

“Seffie?”

“Xerxsephina von Blitzengaard,” Violetta supplied. “Martellus’ sister. Which reminds me, where are we burying his casket?”

Tarvek shrugged. “I’ll send a hearse tomorrow to take it to the Refuge of Storms. _They_ can decide what to do with it.”

“Speaking of burials,” Dolokhov spoke up, “I’m afraid Wulfenbach is too ruined to be a suitable resting place for the baron. Lady Heterodyne has agreed to give him a space in the Mechanicsburg crypt.”

“I thought we’d have the funeral on Thursday,” Agatha added, “if that’s all right with you, Gil.”

Gil nodded. “Thanks. We should probably let Boris handle all the details with Father Yglyn. You’ll come, won’t you?” he asked Tarvek.

“Of course,” Tarvek replied. “It would be churlish of me not to.”

“And you’re welcome to stay in Castle Heterodyne,” Agatha added.

The Smoke Knights gasped in horror.

“It’s not _that_ dangerous, now that it’s repaired,” Tarvek assured them.

“But Your Highness... you... you _can’t!_ ” one of the Smoke Knights stammered.

“Oh, can’t I? The castle knows me; it’s not going to hurt me.”

“But we have strict orders—”

“Orders from whom? I _have_ officially succeeded my father, in case you’ve been asleep all morning!”

“Orders from your grandfather! No one is to enter Castle Heterodyne until you are acknowledged as the Storm King!”

Gil cleared his throat. “Maybe you should stay here while conducting business in Mechanicsburg, or else fly back to Sturmhalten every night. We won’t need the Smoke Knights to follow you into Castle Heterodyne for strategy meetings, but I hardly think it’s worth a mutiny over where you’ll sleep.”

Tarvek huffed. “Oh, very well.”

“Of course, Sturmhalten’s only an hour by ground, the way Dean drives....”

“Do I look like a chauffeur?” Dean jabbed.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Actually, in that suit—”

“Shut up, Sam.”

Sam chuckled. “Shutting up and getting out, unless you need me to stay, Gil.”

Gil smiled and shook his head. “No, I think Higgs and Wooster should be just about ready for you.”

“Boyz?” Gen. Khrizhan prompted.

The three junior Jägers stood at the same time Sam did, and so did Violetta.

Dimo turned to the Smoke Knights then. “Dey dun need uz for dis,” he said, spreading— _both_ arms. Sam hadn’t noticed the mechanical prosthetic before. “Ve vait in de hall, yah?”

“Erm,” said the second Smoke Knight.

“Please do,” said Tarvek.

“Yes, Your Highness,” both Smoke Knights chorused and allowed the Jägers to herd them out of the room.

Sam and Violetta followed, but while Violetta sat down outside the door, Sam caught a passing airman’s attention and got directions back to the Winchesters’ quarters. Once there, he changed out of his suit and into clothes he could potentially get gunky, checked in with a very anxious Baby and left her reassured, and found his way to Gil’s secret lab.

“Ah, Winchester!” Wooster called as Sam walked in. “Master Gil sent you to help, did he?”

“He did,” Sam confirmed. “Said you might need an extra pair of hands.”

“We might well. We do have Zoing, but certain tasks may take a bit more dexterity than he can manage.”

“Zk,” Zoing... agreed? Sam wasn’t sure. In any case, Zoing was out of the way on one of the two cots that were standing near the giant glass vessels Higgs and Wooster were tending. On closer inspection, each cot had a stretcher on top of it; given the need to carry the patients out through an electrical access hatch, that made more sense than a wheeled gurney.

“All right,” said Sam, stopping at the foot of the other cot. “What do you need me to do?”

“For the moment, just watch,” Wooster replied. “We’re about to decant these two, but we’ll likely need your help to get them out of the healing chambers.”

Sam nodded, and Wooster made one final check of the dials on each chamber before opening a valve that allowed the fluid in which the constructs were suspended to drain out slowly. As the last of the fluid drained away, Higgs opened another valve to spray rinse water over each patient, then flipped a switch to turn on a fan that gently dried their hair and skin.

“Now comes the hard part,” said Wooster, moving a ladder over and climbing up to unbolt the top of the male construct’s chamber. “Punch, in particular, is quite heavy—I’ve no idea how Master Gil got him in here while I was gone.”

“You chaps see to Mr. Punch,” Higgs ordered. “I’ll see to Miss Judy.”

Sam glanced over at that point and finally realized that both constructs were stark naked. He cleared his throat and looked back at Wooster. “That’s fine with me.”

Zoing brought over a second ladder for Higgs, and between them they got both Punch and Judy out of the tanks and onto the stretchers.

“They’re not injured,” Wooster explained as Sam helped him wrestle a pair of boxers onto Punch. “At least, they’re not injured _now_. But they will be quite weak for several days still.”

Sam frowned. “What happened to them?”

“They were trying to help Lady Heterodyne escape the baron’s custody. One of the baron’s other constructs killed them.”

Sam blinked at him, then looked back down at Punch, who was quite clearly breathing just fine on his own. “What—then how—”

“Master Gil has studied under Dr. Sun,” Wooster answered and shook out a blanket. “He’s one of the best, if I may say so. He’s a doctor twice over, you know—medicine and electrical engineering.”

“Huh. In our world, you usually have to make a crossroads deal for this sort of thing.”

“Crossroads? As in—”

“Yeah. Demon.”

Wooster inhaled sharply and shook his head before spreading the blanket over Punch.

“Ready over here,” Higgs reported as Zoing pulled another blanket up over Judy.

Just then Punch groaned and stirred.

Wooster put a hand on Punch’s shoulder. “Here, now. Easy, Mr. Clay.”

Punch’s eyes fluttered open, and he peered up at Wooster. “V-v-v-oos-ter?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’ve come back. Master Gil asked us to decant you and your wife.”

Punch looked at Sam and back at Wooster.

“This is Mr. Winchester, from America,” Wooster said. “He and his brother came to help Lady Heterodyne.”

Sam nodded when Punch looked at him again. “Hi.”

Punch nodded back and returned his attention to Wooster. “A-ga-tha?”

“She’s safe,” Wooster assured him. “The baron’s dead. Lady Heterodyne’s in a meeting with Master Gil at the moment, but we’re to send you back to Mechanicsburg with her shortly.”

Punch visibly relaxed at that. “Th-th-thank hyu.”

“To Mechanicsburg,” Judy repeated, and Sam looked over at her just as she looked up at Higgs. “She’s done it, then? She’s taken the castle?”

Higgs nodded. “She has, and repaired it into the bargain. But there, I’m sure she’ll want to tell you all about it herself when you’re up to hearing.”

“And you’re keeping an eye on young Wulfenbach for us?”

“That I am.”

She smiled. “You’re a good man, Axel. Thank you.”

Higgs gave her what could only be called a paternal smile and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Just rest now. I expect it won’t be more than a few hours.”

She nodded and closed her eyes.

Wooster caught Sam’s elbow and led him out into the hall. “They raised Lady Heterodyne,” he whispered once they were out of earshot. “ _Punch_ and _Judy_ were the names the Heterodyne Boys gave them when they were first made, but in Beetleburg they were known as Adam and Lilith Clay.”

Sam grimaced. “I think Dean and I’d better stick with ‘Punch’ and ‘Judy.’ We had a half-brother named Adam, and I killed Lilith in our world—the demon, I mean.”

Wooster’s eyes went wide. “Great Scott! Master Castiel had said something about you being caught in a trap Lilith had set, but I never dreamed....”

“Yeah, killing Lilith was the last seal to open Lucifer’s Cage. Even Cas didn’t know until it was too late.”

“And his superiors _wanted that?!_ ”

“Some of them had this idea that God wanted them to jumpstart the Apocalypse that way. But they hadn’t figured on us,” Sam added with a smirk.

Wooster put a hand to his head. “And I thought this mess was bad.”

“It’s bad enough,” Sam admitted. “We don’t want it to get any worse. But yeah, we know what _worse_ looks like by a few orders of magnitude.”

Wooster sighed heavily. “Well, worse _is_ coming. I know Master Gil’s already dealing with the revolts; I don’t know whether the incident this morning with the Knights of Jove will help or hurt.”

“Tarvek’s mostly got the Knights of Jove under control. He says there are still thirty or so loyal to Lucrezia he needs to root out.”

“That means only that they’re now loyal to _him_. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll stop trying to topple the empire. And Master Gil’s right; that’s the last thing Her Majesty wants. Weakened, certainly, but not gone. That would mean war—and war would make all Europa wish the baron still lived.”

“I don’t know how much we can help with that side of things,” Sam confessed. “But we’ll do what we can to help keep Lucrezia from being even more of a complication. We’ve got a line on where the beacon engine is, and as soon as we can capture it, we’ll work out how to get Lucrezia’s memories off of it.”

Wooster’s face lit up. “Good Lord. You really think you can?”

“Don’t know why not. Might take a while, but at least we’d be sure we weren’t about to be overrun with new Lucrezias while we work. And Tarvek’s got a formula that breaks the slaver wasps’ control of the revenants.”

Wooster jammed his hands into his hair, but given the way he was grinning, that was probably because he didn’t know whether to dance a jig or turn a cartwheel instead. “Why, that’s—that’s—Winchester, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day. I can’t even tell you.”

Sam smiled, but he was spared having to come up with an answer by the sudden appearance of Gadreel. “The briefing is over,” Gadreel announced, “and the Jäger generals have gone back to Sturmhalten with Tarvek to discuss troop placement should Prince Leopold attack. The other Jägers may not be happy about that, given their history, but they are already in Sturmhalten and thus are best placed to defend it. Gilgamesh and Agatha have gone to build the... MALP, I believe Dean called it?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe. It’s from _Stargate_. We’re planning to use those instead of the Jägers to finish exploring the tunnels under Sturmhalten,” he explained to Wooster.

“Ah,” said Wooster.

“Does Dean need my help with the monitors?” Sam asked Gadreel.

Gadreel shook his head. “Until the prototype is tested, there will be no need for more than one, and after, Gilgamesh has technicians who can replicate his work from diagrams. Agatha did ask, though, that you and Ardsley come with me to oversee the preparations for transporting her guardians back to Mechanicsburg—it should be a matter of only an hour or two.”

Wooster nodded. “Of course. I’ll just let Higgs know.” With that, he ducked back into the lab.

Sam blew the air out of his cheeks. “Dunno if I can get used to having this kind of support system. Normally we have to do everything ourselves.”

“It should never have been so,” Gadreel murmured, then sighed. “Sam, I truly am sorry that I tricked you into accepting possession again. I simply did not see another way.”

Sam grimaced. “I can’t say I wish you hadn’t saved my life. I just... wish you hadn’t lied. Wish _Dean_ hadn’t lied. If I’d known what I was agreeing to and why, I might still have said yes. But at least it would have been my decision, not Dean’s.”

“Had there been time, had I been sure of your trust... but that is no excuse, I know.”

“Yeah, well.” Sam paused and managed to find the grace to continue. “Apology accepted.” He might not feel so forgiving if circumstances were different, but he genuinely didn’t remember any incidents where Gadreel had taken over to do anything but save a life.

Gadreel smiled a little. “Thank you.”

Wooster returned then, and the three of them walked to the nearest hangar bay, where Zeetha was giving orders to a bunch of nurses. “Wooster! Winchester!” she called, waving, as she spotted them. “We’re over here.”

Sam looked over the airship as they approached, noting the Wulfenbach tower badges with added caduceus snakes. “Huh,” he said. “Don’t you guys have the Red Cross yet?”

“The what?” Wooster and Zeetha chorused.

“The International Red Cross. It’s a protected medical organization.”

“The staff at the Great Hospital wear a red trilobite,” Gadreel said. “But I have seen no sign of anything like the Red Cross as yet.”

Wooster huffed. “Yes, and good luck getting enough rulers to agree that such protection for medical personnel is even advisable. Or to agree on _anything_ , for that matter.”

That was disturbing. Sam was beginning to realize just how bad even a completely natural war could become in this world, with World War I technology (or better or weirder) and no Geneva Convention. They really couldn’t afford to let it come to that.

“Er, right,” said Zeetha. “You wanna come see what the ship looks like inside? It’s pretty nice, actually.”

So the four of them spent a pleasant hour and a half puttering around on the ship, making sure the patient beds were comfortable and stable and checking all the supplies, although Gadreel went back to Sturmhalten after the first hour. Sam had just stepped out to see if anyone had heard anything from Gil when Dean and Krosp arrived—and Dean, also back in T-shirt and jeans, was grinning bigger than Sam had seen him grin since the night he scored with identical twins.

“This idiot is your responsibility, yes?” Krosp asked Sam crossly.

“Only when he’s drunk,” Sam deadpanned.

“ _Dude_ ,” said Dean. “I built a _color TV_ from _scratch_. And it WORKS!”

“You—seriously? Color?!”

Dean nodded and somehow managed to grin even bigger than he had been.

“So does that mean the MALP works, too?”

“Almost drove over my tail,” Krosp groused.

“Yeah, _almost_ ,” Dean shot back. “You got out of the way in time. And Gil was driving it, not me.”

Ears back, Krosp glared at him and seemed seconds away from hissing.

“Still have to test the range on the transmitter,” Dean continued explaining to Sam, “see if it works underground. But yeah, seriously. Full color. From scratch. I mean, somebody else had to blow the glass, but the rest was all me.”

Sam shook his head, grinning back. “Dude. That’s— _wow_. That’s awesome.”

Dean practically glowed. “Wanna see?”

“Hell, yeah, I wanna see.” Back home, Sam might not have believed it possible. Here? After Baby? He still wanted to see it—but mainly because he _did_ believe it.

He hadn’t felt so proud of his big brother since he was twelve.

Dean talked a mile a minute on the way back to the lab, explaining how it had all come together so easily. Normally, Sam wouldn’t have cared, but something about Dean’s Spark high was contagious, so much so that when they arrived, he barely remembered to say hello to Baby. He really wanted to see what his brother had done and could hardly wait for Dean to turn the dial to switch the monitor on.

It worked, all right. And apparently Agatha and Gil had gotten caught up in the joy of success, too, because they were kissing. Hard.

Sam cleared his throat and turned the monitor off. “Full color,” he concurred.

“Geez,” Dean said, actually blushing. “Wasn’t expecting _that_.”

“Neither were they, clearly. We’d better go tell ’em Punch and Judy are ready to go.”

“Yeah, before Gil does something Punch _will_ hit him for again.”

Baby laughed.

By the time the brothers passed Agatha’s grinning Jägers and got to Gil’s main lab, the kissing session was apparently over, although Gil was still catching his breath and Agatha was hurriedly straightening her hair, and they were both blushing furiously. The reason became clear when Violetta emerged from where she’d been hiding among Gil’s bookshelves.

“Sparks, I swear,” Violetta was grumbling.

“Ah!” Gil cried with evident relief when he saw Sam and Dean. “Everything all right in the other lab, Sam?”

“Yeah, fine,” Sam replied, trying not to let on that they’d seen. “And the transport ship’s ready to roll.”

“Good! Good, I, uh...” Gil cleared his throat. “I think we’re done here.”

Sam turned to Agatha. “Punch and Judy both regained consciousness briefly. They asked after you and were relieved to hear you’re okay.”

“Oh, good,” Agatha replied, nodding. “Good. Wonderful. Thanks.”

After an awkward pause, Sam said, “We’ll... go... bring ’em to the ship?”

“Good idea, yes,” said Gil. “And, uh... maybe get Wooster?” His voiced squeaked a little on that last.

Sam couldn’t help smiling. “Sure. We’ll see you at the ship.”

Wooster was actually looking a little bored by the time the Winchesters collected him, but they didn’t rush getting Punch and Judy to the ship, both because the constructs were still asleep and because Gil and Agatha definitely needed time to regain their composure. Higgs reported that Punch and Judy hadn’t woken again and definitely wouldn’t be able to walk under their own power yet. So Sam and Higgs took Punch’s stretcher while Dean and Wooster carried Judy’s, and Zoing ran ahead to open the access hatch and get doors where needed.

Gil and Agatha had reached the hangar bay by the time the medical procession arrived, and it looked like they were indeed composed, although the Jägers hadn’t quit grinning yet. Romance was forgotten, however, as soon as Agatha saw Punch and Judy. She immediately ran over to check on them, but Gil went ahead into the ship to stand ready to help move them onto the beds once they were on board.

Both Punch and Judy roused as they were being moved. But they were all smiles when they saw Agatha, and Agatha was nearly crying.

“Look at you,” Judy breathed, reaching up to put a hand on Agatha’s cheek. “Our beautiful grown-up girl—Lady Heterodyne. We’re so proud of you!”

Agatha burst into smiling tears and hugged her foster mother. “Oh, Lilith, I thought I’d never see you again. Isn’t Gil wonderful?”

Gil ducked his head with a sheepish smile and started to back out of the cabin.

But Punch caught his wrist. “Hyu... still... vant... mar-ry... A-ga-tha?” he whispered hoarsely.

Gil bent down to whisper back, so only Sam, who was still standing by Punch’s head, could overhear. “Yes, I do, though I haven’t asked her again yet. I’m waiting for things to calm down a bit first, and I would like to ask your blessing.”

“Ve... talk... la-ter, then.” Punch smiled a little and patted Gil’s shoulder gently before returning his attention to Agatha, who was pulling herself away from Judy.

Sam and Wooster followed Gil out to the main cabin, and Dean and Higgs followed them, though Higgs stepped off to the side to claim a farewell kiss from Zeetha. Krosp was lounging on a seat already and flipping through what looked like one of the textbooks Gil had promised Agatha, and the Jägers and Violetta were squabbling quietly about who got to sit where.

Agatha came out last, wiping her face with her handkerchief, but a few fresh tears fell as she hugged Gil. “I can’t thank you enough,” she told him.

“It was nothing, really,” Gil replied.

“No more than any other lovesick fool would have done,” Dean quipped.

Gil and Agatha laughed and let each other go.

“Do you mind if I keep Sam and Dean until the funeral?” Gil asked. “There’s still a lot of work to be done here; I could use their expertise.”

Agatha shook her head. “No, I don’t mind at all. I’ve got Castiel and Kevin, and Wooster. I think I’ve got all the help I need for now.”

Gil nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

“Should we plan on signing that preliminary treaty next Friday? I can let you know before then if there are any changes I want.”

“Sure. We should plan on a strategy meeting afterward as well, and I will want Wooster there for that.”

“Okay, that makes sense.”

“Ready for departure, Herr Baron,” called an airman.

Gil gave Agatha a tender farewell kiss, and he, Higgs, and the Winchesters left the ship but turned back to wave goodbye as the ramp was raised.

Yet as Agatha waved back, Sam suddenly saw Loki the wasp eater poke its head up over her shoulder. And he could have sworn the weasel _winked_ at him before ducking out of sight again.


	14. Know When to Hold 'Em

Jody’s life had taken a turn for the interesting in the months since meeting Linda. Barry Heterodyne’s journal had proven quite instructive, but the gateway Cas and Kevin had rebuilt had burned out completely after their departure, and Linda had decided not to try to follow. Instead, they’d agreed that she would move into the bunker and begin finding out more about the Men of Letters, while Jody took the copy of John Winchester’s journal that Kevin had left to start establishing herself in the hunting world. Fortunately, Dean had kept adding to the journal over the years, which meant that Jody had the knowledge she needed to stop Vesta from killing errant members of her church’s chastity group and cure a girl she rescued from an abusive “family” of vampires. The pishtaco at the Minnesota spa, however... that was just plain police work. But it did bring her into contact with fellow sheriff Donna Hascomb, who was a delight as both a LEO and a hunting colleague. The girls’ club was even joined by an angel named Hannah in March.

Jody didn’t think she was capable of being surprised anymore. The shabby little man who knocked on her door one night in May proved her wrong.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sheriff,” he said as she opened her door slightly, gun in hand but out of sight, skin crawling with the sense that he wasn’t as mild-mannered as his thinning curls, wide blue eyes, and rounded shoulders made him look. “It’s just that I have nowhere else to turn.”

“What can I help you with?” she asked warily.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine. His name is Kevin Tran.”

She tightened her grip on her gun. “Who are you?”

“I’m an angel. My name is Metatron.”

She shot him on principle.

But judging from his expression, she’d wounded his feelings far more than anything else. “Please, I mean him no harm. I know you’re friends with the Winchesters and with Castiel.”

“Damn right I am. Now get lost before I deep fry you in holy oil.”

“Wait,” he said, holding up both hands. “I’ll make you a deal. Tell me where they are, and I’ll... I’ll give you Castiel’s grace.”

She raised her chin and her eyebrow. “Is the grace here on earth?”

“Yes, it’s not far from here.”

“Two conditions. I drive, and you give me the grace before I tell you anything.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed, a little too hastily.

Not taking her eyes off him, she called, “Alex?”

“Yes, Mom?” replied her rescuee, whom she’d unofficially adopted.

“I’m going to be gone overnight. If you need anything, call Hannah or Donna.”

She heard Alex come into the hall and assess the situation in a glance. “Gotcha,” Alex stated. “Don’t work too hard.”

“And no parties, young lady.”

Alex’s eye roll was almost audible. “Yes, ma’am.”

Jody had to suppress a smirk as she returned her full attention to Metatron. “All right, let’s go.”

The angel seemed just a little too satisfied as Jody escorted him to her truck and followed his directions out of town. He probably had some sort of plan to back out of the deal before giving her what she wanted. If he thought she was going to be easy to fool, however, he was in for a surprise. She’d negotiated enough clemency deals to know exactly how the game was played—from both sides.

It took about five hours in all to reach Metatron’s secret hideout, which contained a library. Once inside, however, Metatron smiled up at Jody smugly and crossed his arms. “Here we are. The grace is here, _if_ you can find it. Now tell me—”

“Not so fast, Dr. Loveless,” she returned, wiping the smirk off his face. “You get nothing until the grace is in my hand.”

“How dare you....”

“You think I haven’t read Kevin’s notes? You think I don’t know why you’re so desperate to find him? You think I don’t know how to kill you with a _word?_ ” The last was a bluff because she hadn’t read that far yet, but given the level of detail and what Linda had said she’d read in Kevin’s notes on the demon tablet, it was a fair guess that such a thing was possible.

And the bluff worked. Metatron paled but snarled, “You impudent _human!_ What makes you think I won’t just kill you?”

“You said it yourself. I’m your only hope. You can afford to lose the grace, but you can’t afford to lose me. Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.”

After a moment’s fuming, he finally went to a shelf and retrieved a copy of _Don Quixote_. “Here,” he spat as he handed it to her.

She opened the book, which was covered in faintly visible Enochian wards, to find a cutaway section that held a vial filled with glowing blue liquid. Nodding, she shut the book again and turned to go.

“Wait! You—you _promised!_ ”

“Yes, I did,” she said, turning back at the door. “But it won’t do you any good. They’re gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re in a place where you can’t follow. Nobody can. And if they’re smart, they’ll stay there. You’ve lost, Metatron.”

He howled in rage—but before he could react further, there was the distinct sound of a hand slapping a wall in the shadows and the angel-banishing sigil flared, blasting the angel away.

She took a deep breath and let it out again. “Perfect timing, pard.”

Smiling but shaking a bit, Donna came out into the light. “Lost the GPS signal about a mile back. Good thing I had Hannah with me.”

“You all right?”

“Oh, yeah, you betcha. Just... kind of a shock, y’know? Never banished an angel before.”

Jody chuckled. “Neither had I. C’mon, let’s get that hand healed and get this grace to the bunker.”

“Grace?” Donna asked as they walked outside and Hannah, who had been waiting anxiously, pounced on her to heal her hand. “What does that mean?”

Jody quickly explained what Metatron had done to Cas. “No idea how to get it to him now, though,” she admitted. “But we can give it to Linda for safekeeping until we figure something out.”

“Y’know, I don’t think I’ve been to this bunker yet. Where are we headed?”

“Lebanon, Kansas. Reckon we’ll get in around daybreak.”

“We should stop in town for some coffee, then.”

“We really shouldn’t stay long,” Hannah warned. “Metatron will be back soon.”

Jody nodded. “We can get a few towns down the road before I’ll need gas. We can get coffee then.”

Donna looked a little disappointed but nodded her agreement. Then they went back to their respective cars and got underway.

Even with the need to stop for gas, coffee, and food, Jody’s estimate proved correct. The two-car convoy reached the bunker just as Linda was about to start breakfast. So Donna made French toast while Jody briefed Linda on what had happened, to which Linda responded with language that made Hannah blush.

“Castiel was right, then,” Linda admitted as Donna brought plates to the table. “Kevin’s safer in Mechanicsburg. I just... wish I had some way to send word to him.”

“Perhaps Lord Heterodyne’s journal will have an answer that we’ve missed,” Hannah suggested.

Jody nodded. “Maybe. But it’ll wait until after we eat.”

“Oh, good,” Donna teased, sitting down. “I was afraid this was turning into one of _those_ conversations—y’know, the kind that means there isn’t time for breakfast.”

“There is _always_ time for French toast,” Jody returned, and everyone else laughed.

And the French toast was definitely worth making time for, which all the ladies admitted, to Donna’s pink-cheeked glee. But they were still trying to decide whose turn it was to do the dishes when a door across the hall suddenly opened and a dark-haired lady dressed like Amelia Earhart stepped through from... someplace that looked an awful lot like the Emerald City. Be that as it may, Jody and Donna had her covered in an instant.

The lady froze and looked around at the four women in the kitchen. “Where are the Winchesters?” she asked Jody, frowning.

“They’re not here,” Jody replied. “Why do you ask?”

“A friend of theirs needs help. I think she’ll recover better here than in Oz, but I don’t think I can move her on my own.”

Jody blinked. “Who are you, and who is the friend?”

“I’m Dorothy Baum. The friend is Charlie Bradbury.”

Jody and Donna looked at each other and followed Dorothy back through the doorway.

* * *

“So that’s where things stand,” Agatha concluded as she finished bringing Adam and Lilith up to speed at the rebuilt hospital Wednesday afternoon. She’d already shown them the recording of the exorcism and of the baron’s last speech and told them all about the rebuilding and Tarvek’s coronation, and somehow in the process she’d ended up sitting on the edge of Lilith’s bed. “They’re coming back to town tomorrow for the baron’s funeral, and I’m sure Gil’s going to need some time to recover after that. Then Friday we’ll sign the treaty and have a briefing to sort out what threats we’ve dealt with and what we still need to do, as well as looking over the new constitution Kevin’s drawn up for me.”

“Well!” said Lilith. “I suppose we ought to see whether Sun will let us out of bed for the funeral, at least.”

Adam nodded his agreement.

Agatha bit her lip. “You... don’t think I’m doing the wrong thing, do you? Letting the baron be buried here, I mean.”

Lilith smiled. “No, dear. Your uncle never fully explained why he didn’t trust the baron, but Klaus was a friend of the family, and he can hardly hurt anyone now that he’s dead.”

“E-spe-sh’ly... not... you,” Adam added. His voice was getting stronger, but his speech was still rather halting. Agatha suspected he needed a lot more practice.

“Tell us more about this treaty with your young man, though,” Lilith prompted.

Agatha blinked. “I thought you didn’t want me to marry him.”

“Well, the situation has rather changed. It’s a preliminary treaty, you said?”

“Um. Yes. Gil suspects we’ll want to renegotiate once peace is restored and we get Lucrezia’s work eliminated.”

Lilith’s eyebrows went up. “ _Lucrezia_. Not _Mother_.”

“Yes, well, considering what she did to me and to everyone I care about and quite a lot of people I don’t... you’re the only mother I care to claim.”

“Oh, Agatha.” Lilith held out her arms for a hug, and Agatha gave it to her.

“You... think... he... wants... to... keep... Me-cha-nics-burg?” Adam asked.

Agatha shook her head as she let go of Lilith. “I think he wants to _protect_ Mechanicsburg, or rather to protect me from having to fight anyone else. The siege was pretty terrible; you may not be able to tell when you get out, but the town took a lot of damage before we got the castle repaired, and there were some fatalities. Once peace is restored, though, I think I might be able to talk him into letting us leave the empire but remain allies.”

“That’s rather optimistic,” Lilith cautioned.

“Well, trying to leave now would cause more trouble than it’s worth. If I can prove that I’m fighting alongside Gil, people won’t be as likely to view Mechanicsburg’s secession as anything but an amicable split. Although...” Agatha rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ve got a funny feeling Gil might want me to take _more_ than just Mechanicsburg. The baron did say he was leaving the empire to the three of us.”

Adam frowned. “Has... he... said?”

Agatha shook her head. “No. It’s just a hunch.”

Lilith’s strong hands closed gently over Agatha’s shoulders. “Sweetheart, we know you care for him a great deal, but you need to be careful of trusting him too far politically.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve been getting advice from friends I know I _can_ trust—Mamma Gkika, especially, and Van and Zeetha and Krosp and Wooster, but Castiel and Kevin, too. They’re Men of Letters, and they’re not _from_ here, so they don’t have a vested interest in any of the political considerations.”

Lilith nodded slowly and dropped her hands. “All right. Perhaps you could bring us a copy tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Agatha didn’t think they’d find anything disastrously wrong; the treaty did include a set term of expiration and wouldn’t automatically extend except in case of war preventing a renegotiation. But after all, they were her parents, and they would worry.

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Maxim stuck his head in, hat in hand. “Hoy, Miztress, ve chust got vord from Sturmhalten. Dot Prinz Leopold iz attackink hyu schmot guyz.”

“Bother,” said Agatha. “How’s it going?”

“Vell, der baron vos takink off vit de revenant spray; dot should knock down de infantry. Der Storm King gotz lightning cannons now to take down de klenks. Der baron built dem for him. Und if dot dun vork, dey sendz out de Jägerkin. De Vinchesters tink it von’t effen take all night.”

“I certainly hope not. I’d hate for Gil to miss his father’s funeral.”

“Re-ve-nants?” Adam echoed.

Maxim shrugged. “Vell, dey dun know for sure, Meester Ponch, but de spray knocks ’em down ennyvayz.”

“Tarvek was telling me about it after the coronation,” Agatha explained. “It breaks the wasp’s control, but even if the person isn’t wasped, the formula stuns for a couple of minutes. It’s not even as severe as C-gas. Tarvek developed it, but Gil was the one who wanted to use it in battle first, and Sam helped them figure out how to get it to work as a spray.”

Adam and Lilith looked at each other in surprise.

“I assume the plan is to use the lightning cannons to hit the clanks while the infantry is down.”

Maxim nodded. “Yah, Hy tink zo, Miztress.”

“Good, that should spare some lives. I just hope Tarvek remembers to wait for Gil to get out of range before he fires.”

“Dun vorry. Dey iz friends now. Und dis time Meester Gadreel is goink vit Meester Gil chust in case!”

Agatha laughed. “Thanks, Maxim. Keep me informed.”

“Yez, Miztress.” Maxim nodded to Adam and Lilith and withdrew.

Lilith rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Klaus used C-gas on you, didn’t he, when he first arrived at the shop and took you and....”

“Von Zinzer,” Agatha confirmed. “He did.”

“And now his son is using weapons _less_ incapacitating than that.”

“Still... non-le-thal,” Adam observed.

“I’ve seen his lightning weapons, though,” Agatha confessed. “They are _amazing_. Accurate, too—I doubt there’s any risk of the infantry getting fried, especially if the Knights of Jove surrender as readily to Tarvek as they did to Gil the first time.”

Lilith chuckled. “Listen to you, Agatha. Your father and uncle would be so proud.”

Adam nodded. “Yes. They... would.”

Agatha felt herself blush. “Well, I hope so. I do want to do the right thing, to live up to their example.”

“And I’m certain you will, because you already have.” Lilith kissed Agatha’s forehead as she had ever since Agatha was little. “But now I think we’d better get some rest if we’re going to have any hope at all of Sun allowing us to attend the funeral tomorrow.”

Agatha nodded. “All right. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.” With that, she hugged both Adam and Lilith—Adam twice, because she’d been sitting with Lilith—and left the hospital, Jägers and Violetta in tow.

“I still can’t get over it,” Violetta said. “ _The_ Punch and Judy were your guardians.”

Agatha shot her an amused look. “Why is that so surprising? You know who I am now.”

“Yeah, but... they’re so different from the Heterodyne Boys books.”

“It explains some things for me, though. They always hated the ones they were in, and that’s probably why.”

The conversation was interrupted as they were met by Sleipnir, charging toward Agatha in a towering Irish fury. “This is _your_ fault, colleen!” she thundered in English. “Your cousin, your project—YOU talk to him!”

“What did I do?!” Agatha replied in the same language. “And who am I talking to?”

“Theo! He’s shut himself up in your cursed spark asylum, says he’s got something to finish and it’s got to be done tonight, and he won’t even let me _help!_ ”

“Whaaat?” That was uncharacteristic for Theo—yes, like any spark, he could be single-minded, but a kinder, sweeter soul never lived. Agatha certainly couldn’t imagine him shutting out his own wife. “I didn’t ask him to do _anything_ with the spark asylum. Why won’t he let you help?”

“I don’t _know!_ He just—” Sleipnir jammed her hands into her hair and started ranting in Irish.

“Hoy, hoy!” Dimo interrupted, waving his arms. “Ve ken’t onderstand hyu!”

“ _Cad é atá_....” Sleipnir caught herself, and suddenly the fire went out of her and she slumped a little with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Agatha.”

“It’s all right,” Agatha replied, closing the distance between them to put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “What’s happened?”

“He won’t come out. He’s missed lunch, and he’s about to miss supper. And I... I tried to go in to drag him away and make him eat, but...” Sleipnir looked Agatha in the eye and finally let the depth of her worry show in her eyes. “The door won’t open. It’s not locked. It’s not jammed. It’s not barred or blocked that I can see. It just _won’t open_. It doesn’t even rattle when I bang on it. And I can’t break the glass, either.”

Agatha felt her blood run cold. In the castle, such things might not be so odd, but the asylum, like the hospital and cathedral, was an intentional dead zone—the castle could repair the exterior fabric of the building if needed, but it had no sensors inside and no control over the interior. “What’s he doing?”

Sleipnir shook her head. “I don’t know. Marking something on the walls in invisible ink, last I looked. Blessed if I know why—the lab was empty.”

Agatha swallowed hard. “Show me.”

“He’s been odd the last few days,” Sleipnir explained as she led Agatha and her protectors out of the hospital. “He’d been talking with Castiel before that, you know, while we were still building the place. Seems Gadreel had some idea of fixing up virtual laboratories where the sparks could work but not hurt anyone. Theo was trying to sort out how to make such a thing work. But Saturday night he started having strange dreams. I caught him sleepwalking a time or two, heard him muttering in his sleep, but I couldn’t understand—it sounded like Hindi. Sunday he spent almost all day at the cathedral. Monday he was writing all day, but he wouldn’t let me see his notes. Yesterday he went to the market looking for herbs. And now....”

Agatha looked over her shoulder. “Maxim, go get Castiel.”

“Yez, Miztress,” Maxim replied and loped off in another direction.

“This doesn’t sound like the Spark,” Agatha continued, returning her attention to Sleipnir. “Or at least, not _just_ the Spark. Have you ever heard him speak Hindi before?”

“No,” Sleipnir replied. “I mean, I knew he _can_ ; his father’s journal is in the Devangari script, and he said his parents raised him multilingual. But this... it almost sounded like he was talking _to_ someone, or answering someone. Just short phrases, you know?”

“Hmm. He can’t have been wasped—we made sure of that Thursday night. And it’s awfully delayed to be a reaction to the inoculation formula.”

“Nobody else has reacted that way that we’ve seen.”

Fervently wishing the Winchesters were there, Agatha followed Sleipnir into the asylum and down to the labs, which were underground for security. Someone—Theo, probably, given that he’d evidently taken over the project when Agatha wasn’t looking—had arranged for each lab door to have a narrow window with reinforced glass, presumably to let the asylum staff keep an eye on the experimenting sparks. That was a wise idea, as far as it went, but all it meant at the moment was that Agatha and Sleipnir got to the door of the last lab on the right in time to _see_ Theo press against a cut on his wrist, making it bleed, and let the blood drip into a metal bowl that was sitting in the middle of a table in the middle of the otherwise empty lab.

“What the devil is he doing?!” Sleipnir gasped.

Agatha tried the door. It didn’t budge. Theo bound his wrist with an already stained handkerchief and murmured something Agatha couldn’t hear.

Agatha pounded on the door. “Theo? THEO?!”

Still murmuring, Theo struck a match and held it over the bowl.

“NO!” Agatha and Sleipnir cried.

Theo dropped the match, and flames erupted from the bowl as if it had been filled with gunpowder. Agatha stepped back and kicked at the door—

—and stumbled through as the door swung open of its own accord.

Sleipnir pushed past her to where Theo was lying on the floor. “Theo?! Theo, _mo chroi_ —”

“Nnnnngh,” Theo groaned and put a hand to his head as Sleipnir helped him sit up. “That’s it. That’s the last one.”

“What were you _thinking?!_ ”

“There was... no other way... to make it... make it permanent.” Theo was still breathing hard.

Agatha turned to Violetta. “Can you—”

“Yes, my lady,” Violetta replied and went to put a healing balm on Theo’s wrist and bandage it properly.

“I’m sorry, darling,” Theo told Sleipnir, resting his head against her shoulder. “I couldn’t explain. There wasn’t time. People... people are coming tomorrow to... to see. I had to do it now.”

“Were you looking to get committed here yourself?!” Sleipnir chided.

“No, it’s... it’s really, really complicated, and I’m not just saying that because... you’re not a spark. You know I love you and I think you’re brilliant, but—just... trust me, I couldn’t have figured this out on my own. And I wouldn’t have gone through with it if... if I could have done it a different way.”

“Do _what_ , Theo?” Agatha prompted.

“The virtual labs. Look, get... get Slaghammer, he’s—”

“HOY!” Oggie hollered, and there was a scuffle in the hall.

“What’s going on here?” Agatha demanded as she stepped back out into the hall to find Oggie and Dimo restraining none other than the wild-eyed, wild-haired Dr. Igneous Slaghammer, one of the sparks who’d voluntarily committed himself to the asylum.

“YOU!” Slaghammer yelled, pointing at Agatha. “Heterodyne! I was promised laboratory time—give it to me, or I shall level this town with my beautiful claw!” (Said mechanical claw was one of the first devices Agatha had confiscated from the asylum-seekers. She was pretty sure it couldn’t level a town.)

Two nurses charged down the hall toward him. “We’re sorry, Lady Heterodyne,” one of them began.

Agatha held up a hand. “No, no, wait.” She turned back to Theo. “You’re sure they’re all ready?”

Theo nodded. “Take your choice.”

Agatha nodded back and went to the lab next door, turning up the lights to reveal an identical, though mirrored, layout that was equally furnished but unstocked. There wasn’t even any glassware to be seen. _You’d better be right about this, cousin_ , she thought as she stepped back. “Here you are, Dr. Slaghammer. This lab appears to be free.”

Oggie and Dimo let Slaghammer go, and he approached the lab door warily. But as soon as he crossed the threshold, he gasped loudly, and his eyes went wide in awe. “This... this is for _me?!_ ”

“Erm. Yes.”

Still staring open-mouthed, Slaghammer wandered slowly through the lab, easily maneuvering around the tables that were present and running his fingers over equipment that... wasn’t. He was nearly in tears when he made his way back to the door and fell to his knees in front of Agatha. “My lady—gracious beyond words—I am your humble servant ever!”

Agatha blinked. “You’re welcome? Uh, have fun.”

Slaghammer nodded, pulled himself together with a visible effort, stood, and hurried to a table to begin building something only he could see. Agatha pulled the door shut behind him, and it locked automatically.

“Only a spark who is truly unhinged can use these labs,” Theo said quietly, and Agatha turned to find that he and Sleipnir and Violetta had come out into the hall at last. “There are lesser types of mental illness, of course, perhaps difficult to live with but not enough to make the man a danger to himself or to others. Those thus afflicted won’t meet the conditions. But if the spark is truly mad, no matter which room he enters, he will find the lab of his dreams. Quite literally. And the walls are soundproof, so the sparks won’t even disturb each other while they’re ‘working.’” He gestured toward the window into Slaghammer’s lab. “Any relatively sane person, spark or not, will see the labs as they truly are—empty.”

“It’s like Venthraxus Heterodyne’s kitchen,” Agatha realized, recalling the small kitchen her ancestor had built to contain his favorite chef when said chef had gone mad and started poisoning people. “Only there’s no food for the spark to poison, so he can’t even poison himself by accident. But what if he tried, or thought he’d built a doomsday device and set it off or something?”

Theo shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’d die, but I don’t know what would happen. Maybe... maybe the shock of _not_ dying would open the door for better treatment.”

“I still don’t like what it took,” Sleipnir stated. “And you should have said _something_ so I wouldn’t panic. But I don’t suppose I can argue with the results.”

“I _am_ sorry for panicking you. Make it up to you after supper?”

“You’d _better_.”

He kissed her, and Violetta huffed and rolled her eyes.

“Hy tink mebbe ve better go,” said Dimo.

“I agree,” said Agatha and, with an apologetic smile for the nurses, led the way back upstairs.

The six of them had just stepped outside when Maxim and Castiel ran up. “Lady Heterodyne!” Castiel gasped. “What happened?”

“Well, I’m not entirely sure,” Agatha confessed. “But everything’s all right now. Theo set up the virtual labs you suggested.”

Castiel blinked at her, then looked at Theo’s wrist and the bowl Violetta was carrying and promptly charged into the asylum.

“Vot der dumboozle?” Maxim asked.

Agatha could only shrug.

A minute or two later, Castiel came back out at a much slower pace, frowning in apparent confusion. “May I?” he asked Violetta and took the bowl from her to examine.

“Is something wrong?” Sleipnir prompted.

“Not exactly.” Still frowning, Castiel handed the bowl back to Violetta. “There’s so much I can’t sense anymore. There are marks of all this that are familiar, but... how it could be possible... I just can’t be sure.”

“Are we in any danger?” Violetta asked.

Castiel shook his head. “No, no, what danger there was is past. Forgive me; I don’t even know how much I ought to explain. But Theo, how did you know what to do?”

“I—” Theo blinked. “I don’t remember.” At Castiel’s look of alarm, he held up a hand. “No, no, I mean I remember _doing_ it, and I know I had conscious control of myself while I was going through the steps, but how I knew them... it’s fading, like I’ve just woken up from a dream. There was a long explanation that made sense at the time, but I can’t recall what it was now. I took notes, though, if you’d like to see them.”

“No, that’s not necessary. The pages may be blank by now anyway.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Thank you.”

 _Don’t worry, kiddo_ , an unfamiliar voice whispered into Agatha’s mind suddenly, causing her to miss whatever was being said next. _Everything’s okay. I’m here to help._

“Agatha?” Sleipnir prompted.

Agatha blinked. “What?”

“We’re going.”

“Ah, right, going, yes.” Still rather unsettled, Agatha hurried to join her friends on the way back to the castle.

And she wasn’t at all sure whether to be reassured by the chocolate trilobite she found on her pillow when she went to bed that night, although she ate it anyway and didn’t suffer any ill effects.

Thursday was as difficult a day as Agatha had feared, from Gil and Tarvek arriving with Gadreel and the Winchesters by car, followed by the Jäger horde, to the thousands of people who swarmed into town and into the cathedral to pay their last respects to the baron and to give their regards to his children and Agatha. It was a good service, all things considered, and she was glad to be able to give her support to Gil and Zeetha, but she was glad to have Adam and Lilith there to support her along with all of their other friends. Gil’s grief, in particular, was palpable, and even the Winchesters seemed to be remembering losses of their own. Theo had been right, too; quite a few dignitaries wanted a tour of the spark asylum—or rather, the Mechanicsburg Home for Troubled Sparks, as the sign above the door now proclaimed. Van took charge of that, fortunately, and managed to impress everyone who needed to be impressed. That left Agatha free to eat with her friends and family, spend some time with Tarvek before he needed to fly back to Sturmhalten with his Smoke Knights and Gadreel, and go with Gil to walk Adam and Lilith back to the hospital and chat with them for a bit before Dr. Sun insisted they needed to rest. The walk back to the castle was slow, and although they were arm in arm, Gil kept Agatha’s hand covered with his own the whole way.

After supper, though, when everything had calmed down and most of the visitors, including Tarvek, had left, Gil asked Agatha quietly if they could just sit somewhere for a while.

Agatha looked up at him, worried. “Alone, or....”

Gil shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

So she found a parlor with a nice view of the sunset and left the door open as they sat down together on the sofa, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder, just taking comfort in each other’s presence. Krosp wandered in after a few minutes and curled up in an armchair. Zeetha wandered in a few minutes later and sat down on the floor on the other side of Agatha. The Winchesters and Violetta came in sometime after that, and the Jägers trickled in last of all and closed the door. And still nobody spoke for a long time.

Agatha was nearly asleep when Zeetha drew a deep breath and turned to Dean. “So. How’d things go with Leopold?”

“Hm?” Dean replied. “Oh. Nothin’ to it. He was in the first clank Tarvek fried. Rest of ’em surrendered as soon as they came to. Some of the troops actually admitted to knowing they were revenants, too, so the spray plan worked out.”

“Good,” Agatha said. “I thought it would.”

Gil smiled and pressed his cheek against the top of her head, and silence fell again for a long moment.

“Mistress,” the castle suddenly said urgently. “Something approaches—I’m not sure what or how—”

It was interrupted when the door opened and a petite lady with short red hair poked her head through. “Is this the right room for an argument?”

Almost before Agatha knew what was happening, Dean was on his feet and sweeping the newcomer off her feet into a bear hug, joyful growl and all. She laughed as he spun her around and set her down; then she hurried past him to give Sam an equally warm hug, though he didn’t pick her up. Meanwhile, a host of little people—all around Krosp’s size—handed what were presumably the lady’s bags and trunk through the portal from a plaza paved with yellow brick to the bemused Jägers. That done, the little people closed the door, and a flare of light around the doorframe proclaimed the unexpected portal closed.

“Sweet mother of steampunk,” the lady said as Sam finally let her go and she looked around the room. “You guys, I was _totally_ jealous when Sheriff Mills filled me in. I love _Girl Genius_!”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Sam teased.

“Excuse me,” Agatha spoke up. “Would someone—”

“Right, right,” Dean interrupted and put an arm around the lady’s shoulders. “Everyone, _this_ is Charlie... the little sister I never had.”

“Awww,” said Charlie, leaning into the side hug. “I missed you, too, Dean.”


	15. Politics as Usual

“Charlotte Bradbury,” Charlie told Wooster as everyone walked toward the castle’s meeting room the next morning after breakfast. “I’m 30 years old; I’m from Topeka, Kansas; and I am a Woman of Letters.”

Wooster dutifully wrote all of that down. “That last may surprise my superiors,” he admitted.

“She’s a spark,” Dean stated. “It’s not that weird.”

Charlie brightened. “Am I?”

Sam shrugged. “You’re smarter than we are. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be one.”

“Sweet! I always thought I was.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” said Krosp.

Dean snorted. “Wait’ll we turn her loose on the beacon engine. You’ll see.”

“I thought that was going to be your brother’s project.”

“Well, it’ll probably take both of us to sort through the code,” Charlie noted, her voice gaining a sparky edge, “but first we have to get the data off the beacon’s hard drive, and _that_ , let me tell you, is going to be a challenge, considering the state of the technology that’s available here. We don’t even have any way to make a silicon microprocessor. _But_ fortunately, I decided to bring my own tablet, which is pretty much brand new—okay, it’s a refurb, but I needed it fast, and it was cheap—so the real challenge is going to be coming up with some kind of converter that will connect to the USB port and a reliable way to charge the battery....”

Krosp looked mildly terrified. Sam and Dean just shared a fond smile.

As Tarvek and Agatha started talking batteries and chargers with Charlie, however, Gil touched Dean’s arm and whispered, “You did bring her up to speed?”

Dean nodded slightly. “Gadreel did. She’s in.”

Gil blinked. “Why Gadreel?”

“Angel.”

“Ah.”

“Uh, Charlie,” Sam interrupted, “how big is the hard drive on your tablet?”

“Only 250 gigs,” Charlie answered, “ _but_ before you ask, yes, I did think about how much data the human mind can probably hold, _and_ it just so happens I was able to call in a few favors that people owed me from before you guys killed Dick Roman. So I? Am in possession of a 1.2 _petabyte_ external hard drive.”

“You are a goddess.”

Charlie beamed.

“No, seriously, I didn’t even know they _made_ those.”

“Why are you so surprised? I left in 2016.”

“Whoa,” Dean broke in. “Twenty- _sixteen?!_ ”

Charlie grimaced at him. “Sorry. Yeah.”

“We’ve been gone—”

“A year. Give or take. If it makes you feel any better? There’s a time difference between our world and Oz, too. It was really weird to come back after only two months to find out I’d missed almost a whole year.”

Dean exchanged a look with Sam, who told her, “We’ve only been here a week.”

“And already proven yourselves invaluable,” said Gil. “I’m sure Miss Bradbury will do the same.”

“I’ll try,” Charlie promised.

They got to the meeting room at that point, where Gil introduced Charlie to Dolokhov, and then Gil, Agatha, Zeetha, Mamma Gkika, Gen. Zog, von Mekkhan, and Sam (for some reason) all went into the meeting room with Dolokhov first to sign the treaty. That left everyone else who was going to the strategy meeting out in the hall. Cas, Gadreel, and Krosp got talking with the other three Jäger generals (Dean hadn’t caught the red one’s name yet), and Tarvek and Violetta got talking with Agatha’s Jägers.

Charlie, for her part, turned to Kevin. “Weee haven’t actually met yet, and I don’t think you’re in the books.”

“Kevin Tran,” Kevin replied.

“Kevin. Right. Hi. I’m Charlie. Your mom sends her love.”

Kevin’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen her?”

Charlie nodded. “Yup. She’s fine. She’s taken over coordinating the Women of Letters. And she’s been reading _Girl Genius_ every week, keeping tabs on you. The archives have been unlocking slowly as the timeline gets rewritten; I think she’d just read about Sam and Dean interrogating Zola when I left.”

Kevin took a deep ragged breath and let it out again. “Thanks.”

Dean blinked. “Wow. That _is_ slow. That was last week.”

Charlie shrugged. “I think she’s pacing herself because so much is still locked. With Gadreel stopping the stasis bomb... we’re talking _major_ timeline rewrite.”

“How major?”

She glanced up and around. “I’m not sure I want to say here.”

“Oh, come now,” said the castle. “I’m perfectly capable of keeping secrets.”

“It’s not just _you_ , Castle. There were some complications I don’t think Gil and Agatha need to know about, and some mysteries hadn’t yet been explained when I left. If it’s relevant, I’ll share.”

“Not even a teeny hint?” For some reason, the castle almost seemed to pout.

She sighed. “Well, I can mention this. Martellus was planning to kidnap Agatha. He would have succeeded, too, up to a point.”

“That _swine_ ,” Wooster snarled.

“Yeah. If he was even slightly redeemable, he hadn’t shown any sign of it before I left for Oz. I know his death was a legitimate accident, but....”

Tarvek had overheard this last exchange and was royally steamed. “If I weren’t already sure there was nothing left of Martellus,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice, “I’d order him exhumed and burned and have Gadreel scatter the ashes to the farthest corners of the cosmos _just because I could_.”

“What a good boy!” the castle crooned.

Charlie grimaced. “Yeah, well, you see why I don’t want to say too much about that other timeline.”

Tarvek nodded. “If that’s the least upsetting thing you could share, certainly.”

The meeting room door opened at that point, and Zeetha leaned out. “All set!”

The rest of the participants—meaning everyone but Agatha’s Jägers—trooped into the room while Dolokhov put the signed treaty away in his portfolio and cleared the end of the table and Gil unrolled the map Dolokhov had brought down with the latest information on ongoing rebellions across the empire. Kevin had also given Dolokhov a copy of his draft constitution after the funeral the day before, and Dolokhov now pulled out a stack of copies to hand around for everyone to review.

“Before we begin,” said Gil as everyone found a seat, “I’d like to know whether Miss Bradbury has any outside information to share.”

“Well, sort of,” Charlie replied. “It’s not necessarily relevant, and it can wait.”

“I believe His Highness should be the judge of that,” Dolokhov stated.

“Okay, then.” Charlie turned to Agatha. “I’ve seen your dad and your uncle.”

Agatha gasped. “What?! Where—how—”

“They weren’t exactly in the best of shape,” Charlie interrupted. “I mean, physically, he—they—i-it’s kind of a long story. But the short version is, they said to tell you they’re sorry, but they can’t come back.”

“Why not?”

“Well, see, your mom threw your dad through a portal right when he shot her. I don’t know where he was supposed to end up, but he didn’t land in this universe. The universe he _did_ land in was in the middle of a war, and he got swept up in it. He was still there when your uncle finally found him. But then....” Charlie sighed and shook her head. “The story came out pretty jumbled. I get the impression not even they really know what happened. But Barry was trying to get Bill back to the portal to come home when they were attacked by the Wicked Witch of the East. One of them threw himself in front of the other when she cast some sort of curse, and... well... they merged. Now they’re the Wizard of Oz.”

Agatha’s jaw dropped.

Dean frowned. “The Wizard of Oz is—what, like Firestorm?”[1]

“Except it’s permanent,” Charlie confirmed. “Well, and no powers beyond the Spark. But Glinda’s tried everything, and she can’t separate them. The Witch’s death should have undone the curse, but instead it sealed it. I mean, on one level, they’re okay with it because before Lucrezia came along, they were pretty much as inseparable as you guys are. But knowing that they’re literally inseparable and can’t hide anything from each other anymore just compounds all the other stuff they haven’t been dealing with since the assault on the castle. And now that the revolution’s over... the Wizard is fine, but the Heterodyne Boys aren’t. They’re not even _Winchester_ fine.” And considering that she’d seen Sam after the second trial and shared one of Dean’s worst nightmares while he was dreamwalking in one of hers to save her from a djinn, that was saying a lot.

“So they think they can’t come home,” Agatha concluded quietly.

Charlie turned back to her. “I think they don’t want you to see them like that. I know they don’t want the rest of Mechanicsburg to.”

“But the portal you came through... was it only a one-way event?”

“No. I could take you to see him. They might not be happy about it, but on the other hand, it might do them some good.”

“Maybe later, when everything’s settled and... well, when the war’s over. I think they’d be glad to know we’ll have finished what they started.”

Charlie smiled and nodded once. “Sure. Makes sense.”

Kevin frowned. “Wait, if we can get to Oz from here....”

“You can get from Oz back to our world, too,” Charlie answered. “But I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, especially for you.”

“Why not?”

“The angels are still feuding, for one thing, and Metatron’s still trying to weasel his way into power among them, which is going _really_ badly because the tablets are here.”

“Good riddance,” Gadreel and Cas muttered at the same time.

“For another, Crowley’s back to being King of Hell.”

Cas scowled. “What? How? We left him human.”

Charlie grimaced. “He figured out the only way to kill Abaddon was with the First Blade, the weapon Cain used to kill Abel. But the First Blade can’t be wielded by anyone who doesn’t bear the Mark of Cain. So Crowley somehow found Cain and got him to transfer the Mark to him, had one of his underlings kill him and bring him right back as a demon, and killed Abaddon. But now he’s not just the sneaky underhanded salesman anymore. He’s got bloodlust fueled by the Mark, and he doesn’t even try to restrain it. He even found a way to kill his own mother, from what Sheriff Mills told me, and she was a very powerful witch. So the hunters really have their hands full.”

“Well, so do we,” said Tarvek, bringing the conversation back to the purpose of the meeting. “And as we’re all committed to solving the problems at hand, I believe we should do so and trust that your world can fend for itself until we succeed.”

Charlie held up both hands. “I’m good with that. I was arguing for staying!”

Mamma Gkika put a hand on Agatha’s shoulder. “Tink ov hit dis vay, sveetie. De masters iz safe. But _hyu_ iz de von vot needz to mek sure Europa iz safe. Und hyu iz not alone.”

Agatha smiled. “No. I’m very grateful for all of you.”

Dolokhov harrumphed.

“And we are going to need both Mr. Winchester and Miss Bradbury to work on the beacon engine.”

“Especially since we _have_ it,” Gil announced with a smirk.

Agatha’s face lit up. “You _do?_ ”

“It’s on Castle Wulfenbach for containment,” Tarvek explained. “Gil’s troops took Passholdt on Tuesday, but we’ve been too busy since then to do much with it. Since Lucrezia showed me how it works, I’ll be the one to take it apart and isolate the portion that contains the data core. You should have an easier time designing whatever adapter you need from there,” he told Charlie.

Charlie nodded. “Great. Thanks.”

“How about dropping the rest in Vesuvius?” Krosp suggested, tail twitching.

“Well, it wouldn’t be strictly necessary,” Gil replied, “but I won’t object if Agatha wants to anyway.”

“I might,” said Agatha. “Or use it to test explosives or something.”

“We found only five of the hive engines. But _those_ we’ve already taken care of—or rather, let the Jägers take care of.”

“Bog pie,” Gen. Goomblast said happily. “Vos plenty for effryvon.”

At Kevin’s squeamish grimace, Dean said, “Hey, at least this way we know the wasps aren’t coming back.”

Kevin tilted his head. “True.”

Gen. Zog frowned. “Ognian said vas dozens ov slaver engines under Sturmhalten. Vy only five in Passholdt?”

“They’ve been handed on to Lucrezia’s other servants,” Sam reported. “There’s _nothing_ left under Sturmhalten, but we’ve found all the exits of the cavern system, and most of them are at least ten miles from Balan’s Gap. Before we came to town yesterday, Gil organized search teams to follow the cart tracks as far as possible. If they lose the trail, they already have the coordinates of the nearest Knights of Jove stronghold.”

“Goot,” rumbled the red general. “Hyu tell uz vere to go, Miztress, und ve sqvash dose bogs, too.”

The other generals growled their agreement.

“Let’s hear the rest of the briefing before we decide,” Agatha cautioned. “If the wasps were the only threat, I’d send you out with Gil this afternoon. But as it is, we may need you more elsewhere.”

Dolokhov looked oddly heartened by that comment.

The next two hours consisted of discussions of where the rebellions were, who was behind them, and who was behind _them_. Most of it was information Dean already knew and had given input on, but von Mekkhan and Krosp had details to add that Mechanicsburg’s intelligence network had gleaned from visitor chatter the day before, and Wooster verified some and added context for others. Everyone agreed—reluctantly, on the Jägers’ part—that a strong military response, though necessary, would do more good if coupled with the announcement of the new constitution.

Dean turned to Kevin then. “Okay, dude. You’re on.”

For a moment, Kevin looked like the terrified, hyperventilating high school kid who’d showed up at the mental hospital where Cas had been a patient after taking on Sam’s Hell trauma, the kid who’d latched onto the Leviathan tablet and couldn’t let go and didn’t know why. But that moment was brief. Then Kevin Tran, Prophet of the Lord and brilliant little weasel who’d outsmarted Crowley more than once, cleared his throat and stood to explain the constitution he’d drafted _on his own_. And it looked like a decent draft, too. Though Dean didn’t remember a ton from the Government/Economics class he’d suffered through as a senior before finally convincing Dad to let him get his GED and drop out, the terms Kevin had drawn up looked like a cross between the American and British systems with greater power concentrated in the executive branch and a fairly detailed Bill of Rights. Kevin had an answer for every question put to him, too. Dean was ridiculously proud of him.

As Kevin finally sat down, Dolokhov looked at him narrowly. “You don’t happen to be a spark, do you, Mr. Tran?”

“If I am,” Kevin confessed, “it hasn’t shown up yet. Politics is just something I’ve always been really interested in.”

“Is that a problem, Mr. Dolokhov?” Sam challenged.

Dolokhov actually smiled. “Not at all, Mr. Winchester. I was just thinking it might make the terms _more_ acceptable to the majority of people, knowing they weren’t dreamed up by a madboy.”

Kevin looked like he didn’t know whether to be pleased or insulted.

Gil, Agatha, and Tarvek took over the discussion then, hashing out what would and wouldn’t work in light of entrenched attitudes among Europa’s old power brokers, mainly the nobles of the Fifty Families and the Knights of Jove. Zeetha actually had some useful ideas to add, as did Krosp, and the Jägers mostly kept their opinions to themselves except when it came to the rights of constructs, a topic on which Dolokhov, as a construct himself, looked shocked to find himself in agreement with them. As the meeting wound down toward lunchtime, however, Gil, Agatha, and Tarvek had managed to come up with all the changes they thought needed to be made... and most of Kevin’s work had survived intact.

He held up okay until Agatha finally turned to him with a sunny smile. “Good job, Kevin!”

The pressure off, Kevin ran shaking hands over his face while Dean patted him on the back. “Thank you, Jefferson and Madison, wherever you are,” Kevin squeaked.

Sam laughed, and Dean tousled Kevin’s hair.

Dolokhov tucked his annotated copy of the constitution into his portfolio and turned to Gil. “I’ll go make these changes, Your Highness, and see that the announcement is made.”

Gil nodded once. “Thanks, Boris. I think that does it for this morning. We’ll see how it all goes over and meet again in a week or so.”

Everyone else made noises of relieved agreement, and most of those assembled got up from the table. But Charlie and the Winchesters made a show of fussing over Kevin—the praise was genuine, just played up—and Gil, Wooster, and the angels were slow to move away from the table.

“Aren’t you coming to lunch?” Agatha asked as she and Krosp, at the tail of the main group, hesitated at the door.

“Oh, definitely,” Gil replied. “Just need to put the map up and make sure Kevin’s okay. We’ll be right there.”

“Okay. Don’t be long.”

“I won’t,” Gil promised with a lovestruck smile that Agatha returned, and she and Krosp left.

The second Krosp’s tail cleared the doorframe, however, Gadreel snapped his fingers—and the pendulum of the wall clock froze in mid-swing.

Kevin stared. “You’ve stopped time?”

“Oh, no,” Gadreel replied. “I have simply moved the eight of us outside the flow of time for the moment. Had I actually stopped time, the castle would still have been able to overhear.”

“... I do _not_ want to know how you know that.”

“This emergency meeting of the Mechanicsburg chapter of the Men of Letters is now in session,” Charlie declared.

Dean flipped a small gavel from its hiding place in his belt and smacked it down on the table.

“Do we have a quorum?”

“All members present and accounted for,” Sam reported.

“Good. First item: extending membership in this society to Baron Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and Mr. Ardsley Wooster. All in favor?”

“Aye,” said the Americans and the angels.

Dean banged the gavel. “Approved.”

“Second item,” Charlie continued. “Resolution to offer membership to Theopholous and Sleipnir DuMedd and Lady Agatha Heterodyne at our next regular meeting, whenever that is.”

“I move this resolution be approved,” Sam stated briskly.

“Second,” said Cas.

“All in favor?” Charlie asked.

“Aye,” everyone chorused.

Dean banged the gavel. “Motion carried.”

“Wait,” said Kevin. “Should we be taking minutes?”

“It’s a secret emergency meeting,” Charlie replied. “Someone can write minutes when it doesn’t have to be secret anymore. Or, y’know, never. Anyway. Third item: Gil’s big plan.”

“Which we may have to execute fast,” Gil began as he stood up and put his hands down on the edges of the map. “The new constitution may buy us some time for Plan A, but Boris is already drawing up the treaty just in case we have to jump to Plan B.” He set a small projector clank at the edge of the map and switched it on to generate a holographic overlay. “Here’s what Europa looked like at the height of the Shining Coalition, when Andronicus Valois married Euphrosynia Heterodyne.” Valois territory appeared to cover more or less the same area of Western and Central Europe as the original Frankish Empire, with Eastern Europe largely in the hands of the Heterodynes (and Dean was _not_ going to admit to recognizing all of that in front of Sam). “Notice that the revolts being launched in the name of the Storm King are all in territories once governed by Valois, and the ones supposedly supporting Agatha are in areas Clemethious and Bludtharst had conquered. That’s too contrived for coincidence, especially since a lot of those were areas that later Heterodynes lost and reconquered several times over. There _should_ be a lot more bad blood between those people and Mechanicsburg, but either people aren’t thinking in those terms for whatever reason, or they’ve decided Agatha’s more likely to go easy on them if they throw in with her now.”

“Hey, check it out,” Sam noted suddenly, pointing to the border between Valois and Heterodyne lands. “Splitting the empire here separates most of the Balkans from Austria. And if that happens, Storm King or not....”

“No World War I,” Dean agreed, “and if there’s no World War I, there won’t be a World War II, at least not in Europe.”

“ _If_ history in this world would otherwise be analogous to that of ours,” Cas cautioned.

Gil pushed another button on the projector clank, which shifted the overlay to new borders—the Valois area covered only the lands currently held by the Wulfenbach Empire, which ended about halfway across France, and was now labeled _Sturmvoraus_ ; and the old Heterodyne lands were divided roughly in half between _Heterodyne_ to the north and east and _Wulfenbach_ to the south and west. “My original plan,” he continued, indicating the new kingdoms, “was to cede control of these areas gradually, frame them as rewards for success against The Other, that kind of thing. That’s still Plan A. But if we can’t shut the rebellions down in a hurry, a fast transfer of power will save more lives than the gradual approach and should keep the peace intact. The treaty states that Heterodyne and Wulfenbach forces, under the combined aegis of the empire, will assist the Storm King in re-establishing order in his territory, but once peace is restored, Agatha’s and my realms will be autonomous nations allied with the Throne of Lightning, and the three of us will be joint protectors of the Pax Europa. The core provisions of the new constitution will form the basis for the legal codes in all three kingdoms.”

Kevin shook his head. “You’d be turning half of Europa over to Tarvek.”

Gil’s eyes glittered dangerously. “ _Exactly_.”

“One potential sticky wicket,” said Wooster. “Martellus von Blitzengaard’s uncle is a bishop with great influence over His Holiness of Belfast, who won’t be likely now to recognize Prince Sturmvoraus as the Storm King.”

“But that crown was never consecrated by Belfast. Tarvek needs Avignon, and he’s more likely to get Avignon both because that pope is French and because Belfast is opposed.”[2]

Cas sighed. “Such politicking in the Church only brings the way of truth into disrepute.”

Gil grimaced. “That’s the way it is, though. Tarvek just happens to be enough of a snake to make it work in his favor.”

“And you’ve put yourself in the middle, between Tarvek and Agatha,” Dean realized. “So even if he does marry her, he can’t claim the whole pie for himself.”

Charlie nodded. “But he also can’t paint you as a big bad usurper anymore if you’re willing to give up three-quarters of your empire just to keep the peace!”

“Not _just_ to keep the peace, I think,” Gadreel said with a small amused smile that Charlie returned.

“By Jove,” Wooster breathed as he put the rest of the puzzle together. “Oh, well _done_ , Master Gil!” He paused, studying the map for a moment, and then looked up. “Sir, this is all my own idea, so I can’t guarantee that Her Majesty will agree, but I _think_ I may have a stratagem that will resolve the balance of power in a manner favorable to you both.”

Gil raised an eyebrow. “What might that be?”

With a devious smile, Wooster explained.

“Oooooooooh,” chorused the Americans as he finished.

Gil chuckled. “Oh, Wooster, that is brilliant. If you can pull that off, you deserve a knighthood, and if Albia doesn’t give you one, I will.”

Wooster grinned. “So glad you agree, sir.”

“Other suggestions from the floor?” Charlie asked.

“The floor says try the ceiling,” Dean quipped, making everyone laugh.

Sam cleared his throat. “I move we approve this plan in both its forms.”

“Second,” said Kevin.

“All in favor?” Charlie asked.

“Aye!” everyone chorused.

Dean banged the gavel. “Plan approved.”

Charlie nodded once. “If there is no further business?”

“I move we adjourn,” said Cas.

“Second,” said Gil, switching off the projector clank and putting it back in his pocket. “I’m hungry.”

“All in favor?” Charlie asked.

“Aye!” everyone chorused.

“Let’s eat!”

Dean banged the gavel one last time, twirled it around his finger, and stashed it back in his belt. Then Gadreel snapped his fingers again, and time resumed... or whatever.

“One more thing,” Charlie said quietly, leaning over to Cas as Gil left the table and Wooster rolled up the map. “I brought you a present. Do you want it now or later?”

Cas considered. “Now, I think.”

Charlie nodded. “It’s in the trunk. I brought a bunch of stuff with me—including your suit from 1944,” she told Dean.

Dean grinned. “You’re the best, Charlie.”

She grinned back, and the three of them made their excuses to the rest and went to Charlie’s room. There she opened her trunk, rummaged a bit, and pulled out a book, which she opened... revealing a distinctive blue glow.

“Whoa,” said Dean. “Is that—”

“Yup,” Charlie replied and held the opened book out to Cas. “Signed, sealed, delivered—it’s yours.”

Trembling slightly, Cas lifted the vial of grace out of the book. Then, after only a moment’s hesitation, he uncapped the vial. The grace flowed into him, and a burst of light revealed the shadows of his wings, tattered but intact once more.

“Cas?” Dean prompted as the light faded. “Are—are you....”

Cas nodded with a small smile. “Cursed, but yes, I am myself again.”

“You were always _you_ , dude, wings or no wings. C’mere.” And Dean pulled Cas into a back-thumping hug.

When he let go, Cas turned to Charlie. “Thank you for bringing me this.”

Charlie smiled shyly. “Any time. Um, could you do something about my carpal tunnel?”

Chuckling, Cas touched her forehead. “Your carpal tunnel and the last of the wounds you suffered in Oz are healed. You may still want to wear your wrist brace at night, though.”

Charlie beamed at him, but whatever she was about to say next was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Gadreel. “Castiel!” he gasped.

Cas smiled at him. “Hello, brother.”

“You are....”

“Restored. Not whole.”

Gadreel nodded, studying Cas for a moment. “Come, then. Let us see to the rest.”

Cas nodded back, and they both disappeared.

“Um,” said Charlie. “What....”

“The Dyne,” Dean answered.

“Ooooh. Gotcha.”

“C’mon. Let’s get some lunch before Krosp eats it all.”

She giggled, and he draped an arm across her shoulders and steered her to the door.

* * *

[1] For a look at what the _Winchesters_ would be like as a Firestorm-esque fire elemental, check out jennytork’s [Gemini series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/717387). (And yes, this is precisely the opposite of what happened in SPN canon in “There’s No Place Like Home”—I couldn’t do that to Charlie, especially since the entire Mark of Cain storyline is moot in this AU.)

[2] For SPN-only readers: The Western Schism and the Reformation both took significantly different turns in GG-verse, splintering the Western Church even more than it is in our world. There are _seven_ popes, including those of Rome, Avignon, and Belfast.


	16. Won't Get Fooled Again

Over lunch, Dean and Charlie got to talking about the possibilities for setting up some kind of wall map or table that would track revolt locations in real time, less complex than the library’s map of the castle—two-dimensional, at any rate—but still significantly faster than the paper-and-pins version in the war room on Castle Wulfenbach. It wasn’t long before Agatha chimed in, too, but while Gil could see the advantages of such a system, he questioned the ability to track in real time without needing trackers in every town and with every unit.

“Ah, no prob,” said Charlie with a wave of her hand. “I had plenty of time to study the computers in the Men of Letters’ bunker while I was recovering. Even found the original manuals,” she added, smiling at Dean.

“Awesome,” Dean replied. “Have any info on the magic they run on?”

“Yup. May have to get the angels to help us adapt the spells, and it may take something like a Dyne-water power core to make it work, but it shouldn’t be too tough.”

“Wait,” said Tarvek, and he and Gil chorused, “What spells?”

“The computers in the bunker track major supernatural events,” Dean explained. “When the angels fell, the map table lit up like crazy, and the system locked down the bunker.”

“With me in it,” Kevin added grouchily.

Charlie nodded. “Obviously, we can’t use the same search criteria here, but I bet we can get our map table to tune into significant numbers of deaths.”

“Ooh!” Agatha exclaimed. “Do you think we could get it to track revenants, too?”

“Mm, maybe, if Dr. Bren’s notes explain what the wasp eaters sense. But that might be a lot trickier. We should see what we can get out of the beacon engine first.”

“Tracking large death tolls would definitely have its uses beyond just tracking revolts,” said Sam. “Like, if an experiment got out of control and started killing people or if someone decided to break the peace, we’d know right away.”

“Revolts first,” Wooster said firmly. “Heroism can wait.”

“Right,” Dean and Charlie chorused.

Gil chuckled. “Thanks, Wooster.”

Kevin gave Wooster an odd look. “You’re really good at that.”

“I _was_ at school with Master Gil,” Wooster replied darkly. “I daresay I have practice.”

Tarvek laughed.

“We should probably get the prototype set up in one of the labs here,” Gil stated. “Castle Heterodyne’s the most secure of our headquarters.”

“Well, of _course_ ,” said the castle. “Airships crash, and my pit traps _are_ exquisite, if I do say so myself.”

“That, and you can move the whole lab if you have to,” Dean added.

“True.”

“Hey, is Cas done yet? He’s probably the one we need to get the spells worked out.”

“I believe—”

But the castle was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Castiel, looking somewhat glassy-eyed. “Spells? What?”

“Whoa, dude, sit down.” Dean jumped up and steered Castiel into a chair.

“Dean... your soul... the Spark... it’s so beautiful....”

“How much Dyne water’d you drink, anyway? You weren’t seein’ pink elephants after you drank that liquor store.”

Sam frowned. “Dyne? Wait, what—”

“Sheriff Mills got his grace back from Metatron and sent it with me,” Charlie admitted with a grimace.

“Sparks,” Castiel repeated with a sappy grin. “So bright with Father’s glory... even Sam, burned so clean—it’s gone, you know, the Trials purged it.”

Sam flushed bright red. “Shut up, Cas.”

“Make that an order,” Dean grumbled. “Next thing we know, you’ll be off chasin’ bees again.”

“Um,” said Agatha, the only other person at the table who had experienced the Dyne’s power in such a way, and produced a notebook and pencil. “Charlie, do you think you could....”

“On it,” Charlie replied and scribbled down the spells in question.

“Ooh,” Castiel said, watching her. “The Spark turns colors when you use it. Fascinating.”

“Pretty sure you’re just high,” Dean stated.

Charlie got up and sat down on the other side of Castiel. “Here. We need to adapt these to power a map table like the one at the bunker, only with the ability to track major outbreaks of violence.”

Castiel’s face cleared as he looked over the page of spells. “How major? What’s the minimum threshold?”

Gil blew the air out of his cheeks. “Twenty deaths?”

Castiel nodded slowly, then took the pencil, turned the page, and started writing just as quickly as Charlie had. “You’re quite correct, Dean. Not only am I more versed in such matters than even Gadreel is, but the water of the Dyne has given me greater understanding of the properties of this world. The spells from the bunker’s computer would not have served even their original purpose here, but _these_ should answer our need.”

Gadreel appeared just as Castiel slid the notebook back to Charlie. “Oh, _here_ you are, brother.”

Castiel looked up at him. “Oh, yes, forgive me for leaving so suddenly. I’m still hidden, aren’t I?”

“Yes and no. I do not quite understand it, but... just now I sensed... I believe the Dyne may have given you the Spark.”

“Is that even _possible?_ ” Tarvek asked.

Sam tilted his head. “Well, Cas always has been _different_. Even Lucifer thought so.”

“And he is practically one of the family,” Dean added.

“Great,” Kevin groaned. “Everybody’s got the Spark but me.”

“ _I’m_ not a spark,” Violetta observed. “Neither are Wooster and Zeetha. And frankly, I feel a lot better about trusting you around my lady knowing that you’re not going to go off your head and start trying to invent a political system that breaks up all the power structures and gives everybody five acres and a cow or something.”

“That’s distributism,” Kevin replied automatically. “Never been tried, though, and it wouldn’t work here.”

Zeetha snickered.

“Hyu dun hef to be a spark to be a schmot guy, Meester Kevin,” Dimo noted. “Und hyu soundz pretty dem schmot to me.”

Kevin ducked his head with a wry smile. “Thanks, Dimo.”

“And I _am_ going to get you that scholarship to TPU,” Agatha stated, “even if I have to endow it myself. Dr. Glassvitch is looking into options for me. Incidentally, he’s not a spark, either.”

“That... actually makes me feel a lot better. Thanks, Agatha.”

“Pretty sure your mom’s going to be favorably impressed that you came up with this constitution more or less single-handed, Kevin,” Charlie said. “Especially since you don’t have the Spark but you _do_ have the education and the sense to be able to handle both the details and the big picture. In fact, being a spark might have held you back.”

Kevin raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, like he’d never considered that possibility. So his mother was as bad about pushing him to excel as Father had been about pushing Gil, eh? Well, Gil knew one thing he could say to that:

“Transylvania Polygnostic is the most prestigious university in this part of Europa. And for postgraduate work, I’m sure Tarvek or I could get you a fellowship at our alma mater in Paris.”

“Easily,” Tarvek agreed.

Kevin’s eyes lit up. “Grad school in Paris... that’s... wow. Thanks!”

Charlie clapped her hands together once. “Right, so. Cas, anything more we need to know about how to set up this map table?”

Castiel quickly filled several more pages before handing the notebook back to Charlie. “I think you and Dean can take it from there.”

“You are awesome.” Charlie hugged Castiel, who chuckled.

“Not stayin’ to help?” Dean asked.

Castiel shook his head. “No, I believe I might short out the system accidentally. And Gadreel and I had talked about visiting the hospital and the spark asylum.”

“Before you do that,” Gil said, “I’d like you both to take a look at the beacon engine. We don’t want to risk transferring Lucrezia’s spirit along with the data.”

“Oh, of course, certainly.”

The humans finished eating quickly after that, and Agatha led Dean and Charlie off to a lab. Castiel, on the other hand... Gil wasn’t even sure what happened. He blinked, and he and Castiel were on Castle Wulfenbach, standing next to the beacon engine. Guards and technicians scattered, most of them swearing.

A moment later, Gadreel appeared with Tarvek. “Castiel, I don’t think humans like it when you fly with them without permission.”

“You don’t say,” Tarvek deadpanned, then turned to Gil. “Sam sends his apologies. It seems Dean had to swear at Castiel for years before he learned such social graces as not appearing two inches in front of someone’s face.”

Gil snorted in amusement. “I can believe it.”

Castiel, however, was already deep in fugue and completely ignored everyone else in the room, muttering under his breath in some language Gil had never heard before as he circled the beacon. Gadreel addressed him in that language several times, but Castiel barely responded. Finally, Gadreel looked annoyed—and suddenly Castiel winced and put a hand to his head as if he had a sudden headache.

“What?!” he snapped.

“Explain,” Gadreel snapped back. “In German. To the humans.”

“Their names are Sam and Dean, and they don’t speak German.”

“Their _names_ are _Gil and Tarvek_ , and they don’t speak Enochian!”

Startled, Castiel looked at Gil and Tarvek. “—Oh. Forgive me. I... was distracted.”

“No kidding,” Gil replied. “What have you found?”

“Part of Lucrezia’s spirit remains tied to the beacon engine,” Gadreel began.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Castiel shot back. Then to Gil and Tarvek he explained, “The good news is that what remains is currently inert. The better news is that it has been divided only once. Sam and Charlie will have to determine whether any additional copies of Lucrezia were made during the week the Geisterdamen were in Passholdt, but if so, they will be no more powerful than was the copy Zola overpowered in her own mind. If they can be captured, they need not be killed; Tarvek should be able to remove the copied personality without difficulty.”

“That is good news,” Tarvek agreed. “What’s the bad news?”

“This is where it gets complicated and is still not wholly bad. Sam was right. Lucrezia’s power is drawn from the worship of the Geisterdamen and her human followers. That enabled her to attach her soul to the beacon engine, and it gave the beacon the power to divide the spirit that once and force Lucrezia into Agatha. Only Agatha could have received that possession, just as only certain bloodlines can serve as angel vessels in our world. But in our world, only the most powerful of demons could even temporarily divide themselves. Lucrezia’s division was to be permanent—and now that the portion possessing Agatha has been destroyed, it is doubly permanent. The portion that remains is too damaged to divide again or to possess another host. But because it alone is drawing the power of the worship offered to Lucrezia, it is too strong for us to remove it. The only way to destroy it will be to destroy the beacon permanently.”

Gil frowned. “Can we retrieve the data first? Or do we risk shifting the haunting?”

“That’s a question for Charlie and Sam, but from what I can tell, the spirit is tied to the beacon itself, not to the data.”

“Considering that Lucrezia was able to copy her consciousness into the clank head Tarvek made without shifting the remains of her soul,” Gadreel noted, “I think we may safely assume that the data can be downloaded to a computer without hazard.”

“As it’s Charlie’s computer, however, I would rather let her be the one to assess the risk.”

“Especially since it may not be so easy to replace,” Gil interjected. “Dean might be able to forge the proper components, but from what Miss Bradbury said earlier, that isn’t likely. Better to let her think it through than to go through with it, discover we’re wrong, and have to destroy the computer to get rid of Lucrezia.”

Gadreel tilted his head, conceding the point.

“And since they won’t be available to ask until the map table is finished, I suggest we let the matter rest until at least after supper.”

“All right,” Castiel agreed, then hesitated. “Did you need us to....”

“We should probably check in with Dolokhov,” Tarvek interrupted smoothly. “We can catch an airship back to Castle Heterodyne.”

“Very well. We’ll see you later, then.” With that, Castiel disappeared, and Gadreel rolled his eyes and went after him.

Tarvek turned to Gil with a frown. “What did he mean, the Winchesters don’t speak German?”

“What language do you speak around them,” Gil returned, “German or English?”

Tarvek opened his mouth but paused, frown deepening. “Oh. I’m... not sure. I hadn’t thought.”

“Neither have the Jägers. I generally speak English when I’m alone with them but German in company—and they haven’t reacted as if they’ve noticed a difference. It’s only when I speak English that I _hear_ English from them.”

“But that’s... not scientifically possible, is it?”

“Well, as Agatha says, any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. Though I don’t know how we’d sufficiently analyze this particular phenomenon,” Gil admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Tarvek sighed. “My concept of reality is getting rather stretched lately. I’m not sure I like it.”

“Better get over that before Agatha drags us to Oz to meet her father. I’ve seen experiments that resulted in merged bodies with two heads, but I don’t know how one addresses someone with two minds in one body that are both aware at the same time. With Agatha, only one personality was aware at any time.”

“Mm, true. I don’t suppose we’ll have any chance of sufficiently analyzing this map table, either.”

“If it runs on Dyne water, I doubt the castle will allow anyone but Agatha to do any analysis at all.”

Tarvek grimaced. They both knew how... cantankerous the castle could be if it felt its secrets or its mistress threatened. “Right, well, I wasn’t lying about checking in with Dolokhov. If we can take the latest intelligence back with us, we can test the map table’s abilities better.”

Gil nodded his agreement, and off they went to Operations. Boris had finally listened to one of his aides and gone off to take a long nap, but the Deep Thinkers brought Gil and Tarvek up to speed quickly, and the pair of them spent the afternoon ordering troop movements. About the time Boris returned, however, a message arrived from Princess Zulenna Luzhakna stating that Holfung-Borzoi was suffering an outbreak of some strange plague even the nearest sparks couldn’t identify and asking whether Dr. Sun could spare a medical team to come deal with it. The symptoms didn’t sound like anything Gil had ever heard of, either, nor had Tarvek.

“ _Can_ Dr. Sun spare anyone, do you think?” Tarvek asked.

Gil grimaced. “Even if he can, we might have trouble getting his attention to ask. When he’s not on rounds, he’s elbow-deep in building new healing engines.” He paused. “Although we do have a new spark who could probably use the outlet....”

Tarvek snorted. “Dean would be happier about that than if Castiel starts rhapsodizing about bees, whatever that meant.”

Boris blinked. “Did I miss something?”

“Yes,” Gil and Tarvek chorused. “Be glad.”

“We should send Gadreel with him just in case,” Tarvek continued.

Gil nodded. “You think you can spare him, though?”

“Oh, yes, now that the Smoke Knights are clear on what’s going on. As long as I’m not in Castle Heterodyne, they’ll stick with me readily enough.”

“Castle Heterodyne’s probably the last place you’d need them. Of course, you could stay there until Gadreel returns.”

“Could, but shouldn’t. There are too many rumors about her having used mind control on me as it stands. And anyone who wants my opinion about the constitution will be looking for me in Sturmhalten. Come to that, it might be best for me to be seen publicly without Gadreel for a while—that would reaffirm my confidence in the Smoke Knights and give less credence to the idea that he’s managing me for Agatha.”

Gil tilted his head. “Fair enough. We just don’t want you getting killed because you’ve let your guard down.”

“Now that I’ve actually had time to sleep, I don’t think that’ll be much of a problem.”

“Good, because if you _do_ get yourself killed, I’ll bring you back and kill you myself.”

Tarvek snickered.

Gil rolled his eyes and then, feeling somewhat self-conscious because he’d never really tried to pray before, bowed his head and closed his eyes. After a moment of floundering for how to begin, he went with, “Castiel and Gadreel, angels of mercy, hear my prayer and... when you have a minute, can you come to Operations, please?”

He was saved from further embarrassment by the sound of wings, and he opened his eyes to see Castiel and Gadreel looking at him in mild amusement.

“Well, it’s a better prayer than Dean usually manages,” said Castiel. “He doesn’t say _please_ unless Sam’s dying.”

Tarvek coughed in surprise.

“Er, right,” Gil said. “Speaking of dying, would you be willing to take on a healing mission to Holfung-Borzoi?” He handed Castiel the message from Princess Zulenna. “Dr. Sun’s busy, and we can’t really send anyone else when we don’t know what the disease is.”

Castiel frowned. “We’re not trained healers. Battle injuries are one thing, but—”

“We can always try,” Gadreel interrupted. “Someone must go to save as many lives as possible and to preserve goodwill for the empire in that kingdom. And if I’m not mistaken, the situation must be dire for Princess Zulenna even to ask.”

Tarvek blinked. “Because she was a hostage?”

“Because she was killed trying to help Agatha escape,” Gil admitted, “and Father insisted on bringing her back. She’s out of the line of succession now, and she resents that. Bitterly.”

Having caught the sharp side of Princess Zulenna’s tongue more than once, Tarvek could well understand what Gil meant and winced.

“Gadreel has a point. There aren’t any major sparks left in Holfung-Borzoi. They’ve probably already had to beg for help from the Grand Duchy of Orcznik, their bitter enemy, or else from Aalborg. They wouldn’t try to contact us if Dr. Sun weren’t their only hope.”

“That does put a different light on the matter,” Castiel agreed. “In that case, we should go and do what we can.”

Gil nodded. “Thank you.”

“Now where, exactly, is Holfung-Borzoi?”

Gil pointed it out on the map, but before he could explain anything about the place, the angels were gone.

Tarvek looked at Gil, eyes narrowed. “I’ve just thought. Isn’t it convenient for _someone_ that both angels are going to be out of the way?”

Gil frowned. “You said yourself—”

“I know I did. And I’m not expecting another attack, at least not an obvious one. Honestly, I’m not sure what I do expect. It just seems odd that a case this urgent would come up now.”

“Coincidences do happen.”

“Maybe.”

“Do the Knights of Jove have anyone capable of engineering a plague like this?”

Tarvek thought. “Not to my knowledge.”

“Who else who knows about the angels would have the resources?”

“I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone.”

“Well, from everything they’ve said, they’re more warriors than healers, so I’m sure they can get out of any trap that might be laid for them. And we’ll just redouble our own guard while they’re gone.”

Tarvek sighed. “All right, fine. Let’s go see if Dean and Miss Bradbury have that table working yet.”

“Yes, we should be getting back down.” Gil checked his watch. “It’s almost time for supper anyway.”

“Is it?” Boris asked. “Ergh. I hadn’t meant to sleep quite so long.”

“It’s been a rough couple of weeks, Boris. You needed it. And we were here, so it was all right.”

“And now you’re here,” Tarvek chimed in, “so we can go. I imagine we’ll be back in a few hours, though.”

Boris nodded, and Gil and Tarvek left.

Back on the ground, the pair checked in with Tarvek’s Smoke Knights, who were baffled to see them getting out of an airship, then went back into the castle and followed its directions to the lab where Agatha was helping Dean and Charlie make the final connections between a boxy processor unit and a table topped with what looked like a paper map sandwiched between two pieces of glass. Wooster was on hand, too, and looked a little guilty when Gil walked in.

“Not particularly classified, is it, sir?” Wooster asked.

Gil chuckled. “If you mean do I mind Albia knowing we have it? No, not particularly. Not sure what she’d do with the information, honestly.”

“Well, it is a point in favor of your assertion that the three of you want to keep the peace. I rather suspect my superiors still believe my reports tainted by the fact that you know I’m sending them.”

“But not what’s in them, and that’s the main thing.”

“Okay,” Dean said, going to the processor. “We ready?”

“Ready!” Agatha and Charlie chorused.

Dean flipped the main switch. The processor hummed and whirred for a moment, and then with a series of pings, pinpoint diodes lit up under the map, exactly representing the most recent intelligence on the rebellions in progress.

“HA!” Tarvek cried. “It works!”

“’Course it does,” Dean replied, pulling Charlie into a side hug. “Cas knows what he’s doin’, and so does Charlie.”

“And so do you,” Charlie stated, poking Dean in the ribs for emphasis.

Dean grinned sheepishly. “Tryin’ not to get used to it.”

“Oh, _Dean_.”

“So now what?” Agatha asked.

“Now, I think we stick with the original plan,” Gil answered. “Contain the revolts as best we can, work on cleaning out the labs of Lucrezia’s servants, get the data core out of the beacon engine, and give people a week to consider the new constitution. The map table just gives us a better way to monitor the situation further abroad and make new plans if we need them.”

Tarvek nodded. “Makes sense to me.”

“But _first_ ,” Wooster said sternly, “supper, Master Gil.”

Dean’s stomach growled in agreement, and everyone laughed.

* * *

Compared to the previous week, Gil’s second week as ruler of Europa was relatively quiet. Most of the popular uprisings died down almost immediately once the constitution was announced, and those that didn’t and those that were spark- or noble-led to begin with were more easily contained. After dismantling the beacon engine and giving Selnikov’s head a severe brow-beating for information, Tarvek took charge of planning the raids on Lucrezia’s labs and servants and executing them with the help of the Jägers, which also served to rally the Smoke Knights and the anti-Lucrezia parties among the Knights of Jove even more securely to his cause. Castiel and Gadreel did find a genuine outbreak of something or other in Holfung-Borzoi and cleaned it up as best they could, though not before it spread to neighboring principalities that immediately clamored for their help. And Xerxsephina von Blitzengaard did finally surface to propose marriage to Gil, which he declined as politely as he knew how.

It was thus a reduced complement of planners who converged on the map table lab for the next scheduled strategy meeting on the following Friday afternoon. The human members of the Men of Letters were all there, of course, since five of them had stayed behind in Mechanicsburg to begin with and Gil hadn’t gone more than a day’s flight away. Also present were Boris, Tarvek, Agatha, Zeetha, Violetta, Krosp, and Mamma Gkika. Everyone else was away on other business, including von Mekkhan, who was at his usual place in the coffee house collecting intelligence for Agatha. But though Tarvek had brought von Bulen and a couple of other Knights of Jove in addition to his Smoke Knights, he still couldn’t convince any of them to come into Castle Heterodyne with him. Gil thought that might be just as well, given the givens—especially since Charlie met everyone else in the hall with a thick book in her hand.

“What’s that?” Agatha asked her.

“Illustration,” Charlie replied, holding up the book so Gil could see the English title, _The Lord of the Rings_. “Since you guys aren’t used to the computer jargon we’ll be using to talk about the beacon engine data, I figured you might want something to give you a sense of scale.”

“So did you get your adapter thingummy to work?” Tarvek asked as they walked toward the lab.

“We did! Dean’s the one who finally fixed it and found us a stable power supply.”

Dean pretended he hadn’t heard her. Gil fought the urge to laugh.

Tarvek didn’t notice. “And you got the data off the core all right?”

“That was the easy part,” said Sam. “Since Cas said the remains of Lucrezia’s ghost are currently inert, we figured we should hang onto the core for a backup just in case something goes wrong with the copy that’s on Charlie’s external drive. Fortunately, since we have the external drive and a USB hub, we can use both her computer and mine, and Kevin’s if he’s not using it, to go through the data that’s on it.”

“Pretty sure Cas brought Dean’s laptop, too,” Kevin said. “But I can help out when I’m done with the constitution stuff.”

Gil nodded. “And how is the data analysis progressing?”

“The good news is, we can open the source code in a plain text file,” Charlie reported. “That means we can sort through the data without running Lucrezia’s program. We can even divide it into smaller chunks to make it easier to navigate and harder to launch.”

“What’s the bad news?” Agatha asked.

“It’s six _terabytes_ of data. For comparison, this?” Charlie held up her book again. “Is only three and a half _mega_ bytes, even in rich text format, which preserves things like italics—maybe four if you include all the maps and runes.”

“And bytes are counted in Base 8,” Sam added, “so I’m sure you can do the math yourselves.”

Gil did so and let out a low whistle.

Sam nodded. “Exactly. We’re talkin’ Library of Congress, here.”

Dean frowned. “How the hell did all that data fit in a _clank’s_ head?”

“This is the _source_ code, not the executable file,” Charlie replied. “Essentially, what the beacon engine did was download ‘Lucrezia.exe’ into the clank, without the source code included. That would be only, what, two hundred, three hundred megs?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Sam agreed. “Maybe smaller; there might be a separate log file for memories that would be more highly compressed. If there is, though, it’s linked to the executable file too closely for us to find and open separately. Plus, the source code duplicates data that would be included in a person’s... operating system, for lack of a better term—how to walk, talk, eat, and so on. The program would rely on that data already being present.”

“That could also explain why Zola couldn’t access all of Lucrezia’s memories, if data was lost in the transfer from Agatha to her. Lucrezia might even have chosen a lossy data compression protocol deliberately as a failsafe.”

Gil exchanged a bewildered look with Agatha. It wasn’t often he was thoroughly lost when listening to other sparks, but all this talk about data almost like a singular _substance_ was practically a foreign language.

“So how long will it take to go through it all?” Tarvek asked as the group walked into the lab, where a conference table had been brought in for the meeting.

“Too long,” Sam and Charlie chorused.

“I mean, yeah, the Spark gives us ludicrous speed,” Charlie continued, “but so far, we haven’t even succeeded in distinguishing the operating system code from higher knowledge and memories. _And_ it’s all in binary. Even with both of us working on it....”

“It’s gonna take months,” Sam agreed. “And that’s assuming we can come up with a program that can translate the binary into a code language like XML, which is still unwieldy but easier to decipher.”

“And still accessible without running the program.”

“Right. I mean, we can probably set up some sort of search function, but until we know what keywords to search for—”

The discussion was interrupted by a ping from the map table. Then another. Then another. _Ping... ping... ping, ping, ping, pingping pingping pi-pi-pi-pi-pi-pi_....

Gil took a deep breath. “Right. Boris? Plan B.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Boris replied promptly and pulled two packets of paper out of his portfolio, handing one each to Tarvek and Agatha, before going to the map table to start taking notes.

Tarvek frowned as he accepted his copy. “What’s this?”

“The Knights of Jove have evidently convinced the people that there’s only one way they’ll have peace and freedom,” Gil replied. “It’s time to give them what they want.”

“Give them—”

“If the terms of that treaty meet with your approval, we’ll crown the Storm King in Vienna on Midsummer’s Day.”

Tarvek was so staggered, he had to catch himself on the conference table. “Mid—you can’t be serious.”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“No, but—but—your empire—what’s—what’s the catch?”

“None. I’m _giving_ it to you.”

“And you know what they say about gift horses,” Kevin added.

“Father never intended to hold power indefinitely,” Gil continued. “It was the only way he knew to keep the peace after what Lucrezia did to Europa. But clearly, force isn’t working anymore, and neither is reason. Besides which, you’re the one who’s made a sacred vow to wipe out Lucrezia’s work, and no one _knows_ her work better than you do. We’ll still cooperate with you, obviously. But it’ll be easier for you to do what needs to be done when you’re in command of the people and resources you need to do it.”

A tear rolled down Tarvek’s cheek. “Gil, I... I don’t know what to say.”

Gil smiled. “Read the treaty first. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Tarvek nodded. “Right, yes, good idea.” He let Sam steer him into a chair and started reading.

Agatha had already gone off in a corner with Zeetha, Krosp, Charlie, and Mamma Gkika, who were all reading over her shoulder and discussing quietly. With the hands that weren’t writing, Boris handed a third copy of the treaty to Gil and remarkably didn’t look terribly ruffled by the lack of decorum or the fact that Wooster was still in the room. Then again, this _was_ an emergency negotiation, and Wooster _had_ sort of become the unofficial British ambassador to Mechanicsburg.

Boris didn’t need to know that Wooster, and therefore Albia, already knew what Plan B entailed. And he definitely didn’t need to know that Albia had already agreed to Wooster’s twist. _That_ part was a Men of Letters secret.

Gil skimmed through his copy of the treaty before sitting down next to Dean and Wooster and sliding the papers over for them to skim in turn. Since Tarvek was on his own, Violetta, Kevin, and Sam sat with him and murmured a few comments here and there, to which Tarvek occasionally responded. And still the map table kept pinging. Dean went over to look at it, then motioned to Boris to recommend troop movements for keeping the peace until they could get the treaty signed.

Finally, Tarvek set the papers on the table, took off his pince-nez to set on top of the papers, and ran both hands over his face. “It’s too good to be true. You’re handing me practically everything I’ve ever wanted on a silver platter, down to my choice of the military units to be transferred to my command, aside from the Jägers. You’ve even let me keep Sturmhalten. But the treaty’s language is so straightforward, there aren’t any loopholes or ways any of the terms could be misinterpreted. I keep looking for the catch and not finding it.”

“Dude, you’re not a Winchester,” said Dean. “There’s no law that says _you_ can’t have dreams come true without their being your worst nightmares.”

“Dean,” Sam chided, though he was plainly fighting laughter.

Agatha’s group came back to the table then with some suggested changes to the trade terms, which set up a good half-hour’s worth of spirited haggling that took the edge off Tarvek’s shock. Boris annotated Gil’s copy of the treaty as each new agreement was reached, and when Agatha and Tarvek both agreed to all the other terms as written at the end of the half hour, Gil sent Boris back to Castle Wulfenbach to prepare the final draft and dispatch troops as Dean had recommended. Tarvek took his own annotated copy with him to explain to his retainers, and Agatha went to see about supper, taking most of the group with her. That left Gil, the Winchesters, and the infernally pinging map table. Gil steeled himself to go look at it, saw how widespread the revolts were, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Dean put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. Nobody can say you didn’t try. And at least you _had_ a Plan B.”

“I thought we’d have more time,” Gil sighed, bracing himself on the edge of the map table. “I knew the peace had been tenuous for years, but... I was responsible for all those lives.”

“You couldn’t have saved them all, Gil,” Sam said quietly. “And it’s not even like the bloodshed’s your fault to begin with. Beating yourself up over it gets you nowhere.”

Gil huffed and smiled wryly. “Voice of experience?”

Dean nodded. “Seriously. If you don’t believe us, ask Cas.”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckled. “May feel like the world’s ending right now, but trust me, the actual end of the world is way worse.”

“And then you find out there are fates worse than that.”

Gil looked from one brother to the other. “I’m glad you’re here. Truly.”

Both brothers smiled at the same time, and Dean squeezed Gil’s shoulder and let go.

“I’m sure Tarvek’s going to invite you to the coronation,” Gil continued. “But I’m equally sure Zeetha’s going to want to wear something outrageous, so I think you can get away with white tie rather than court dress. We’ve got some time, though, so Wooster can coach you.”

“That would help,” Sam admitted. “It’s been, what, eight years since Dean last wore a tux?”

Dean shook his head. “I don’t even remember.”

“It was before you went to Hell. Remember, when we went to that black-tie auction....”

“With Bela. Right, right. Man, even Chuck thought that one was bad.”

“That sounds like a story I ought to hear on the way to supper,” Gil interrupted, smiling.

“It’s stupid,” both brothers warned at the same time.

“All the better.”

Dean chuckled, and the three of them left the room. Gil thought the map table stopped pinging abruptly, but he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just distance or his own imagination.

Conversation over supper was subdued, and there was almost none on the flight up to Castle Wulfenbach. Wooster stayed behind, of course, and so did Agatha’s Jägers and Kevin, but everyone else who’d been at the meeting went, as did Tarvek’s party. Boris had been too busy updating the treaty to get to Operations yet, but he did have the treaty ready for them when they arrived, and the final review drew no objections from either Tarvek or Agatha. So they signed—Gil, Tarvek, and Agatha as parties; Boris, Zeetha, the Winchesters, Charlie, Mamma Gkika, von Bulen, and a couple of other Wulfenbach and Sturmvoraus functionaries as witnesses—and Gil suddenly felt a huge burden slide off his shoulders. The empire was _Tarvek’s_ problem now; Gil would support him, of course, but the odds of the current Baron Wulfenbach gaining a reputation for being as irritable and tyrannical as his father had just dropped considerably.

“Right,” Gil said as Boris shook pounce over the signature page to dry the ink. “We’d better head to Operations to get Dean’s troop placements implemented while we can still save some lives.”

“Good idea,” Tarvek agreed. “We can sort out the details of the transfer later.”

With that, they all trooped into Operations, which was... _not_ the bustling hive of activity Gil was expecting. In fact, the map showed no indication of new revolts at all.

“Perhaps there’s been a delay in our communications,” Boris suggested, but he didn’t sound like he quite believed it.

Gil wasn’t sure he believed it, either, but he said, “Well, it can’t hurt to—”

“HERR BARON!” cried a messenger boy on a unicycle, waving a radiogram as he wheeled into the room. “We’ve just had word of a new revolt in East Krumminey!”

“Where the hell is East Krumminey?” the Winchesters chorused.

“That was one of the first revolts the table reported,” Boris murmured.

Gil braced himself as he held out his hand for the radiogram. “How many dead?”

“None yet, Herr Baron,” the messenger replied, handing over the form. “The rioters are still massing. But the governor thought it prudent to send word now.”

Frowning, Gil read the message, which was exactly as the boy had said. “And you’ve had no other reports of violence today?”

The messenger shook his head. “Not by radio, Herr Baron.”

Gil looked at the message again, trying to make sense of the situation. “Then, did... did the table _predict_ , or....”

Dean suddenly muttered a very harsh English curse that didn’t have a close German equivalent, followed by something about angels, and stomped out of the room.

Sam cleared his throat. “Best to treat it as a prediction and act accordingly. Excuse us.” And he followed Dean, with a confused Charlie jogging after him.

Gil drew a deep breath and folded the radiogram in half absently. “Boris, would you....”

“Of course, Your Highness,” Boris responded and immediately went to work, ushering Mamma Gkika and von Bulen over to the map so they could see where he was ordering the troops.

Tarvek and Agatha converged on Gil, and Zeetha crowded in just behind them. “You all right?” Tarvek asked.

Gil nodded slowly and looked him in the eye. “I think I know who wanted Castiel and Gadreel out of the way.”

Tarvek frowned. “Who?”

Gil almost didn’t dare answer out loud, so taking a cue from Baby, he whistled quietly, _The eyes of Texas are upon you..._.

Tarvek, wide-eyed, mouthed the final line: _’Til Gabriel blows his horn_.

Gil nodded slowly.


	17. The Return of the Storm King

Well, whatever may or may not have gone wrong (or right) with the map table, the treaty was signed, and there was no turning back. The announcement of Tarvek’s accession did forestall almost all of the revolts the map table had predicted, however, and instead the empire and the realms beyond were thrown into a frenzy of preparation for the coronation. Agatha found herself continually dragged away from more interesting constitutional law discussions with Kevin, Gil, and Tarvek to receive tributes from the towns now under her control and to give tours of the Home for Troubled Sparks to those who hadn’t seen it on the day of the baron’s funeral. She foisted the tours off on Van or Theo whenever possible, but there were times when a visiting dignitary looked worried that he might be locked up instead of shown through, and those she had to take around herself.

There was one dignitary she was overjoyed to see, though. Most of the Beetleburg delegation had been either cautiously skeptical of her or plainly worried that she’d retaliate for the way she’d been treated ( _stupid_ , _damaged_ , _there’s something **wrong** with her_), but when the rest of the group went off with Van, she asked the TPU delegate to remain—and had to restrain herself until the others left before running to hug him.

“Dr. Glassvitch!” she cried, embracing her favorite former professor.

“Oh, Agatha!” he replied, laughing as he returned the hug. “Sweet lightning, how you’ve changed these last few months!”

“For the better, I hope.”

“Indeed so.” He backed away to arm’s length and beamed at her. “And I couldn’t be prouder. The _Heterodyne_. The Master never said—but I always knew there was something special about you, even though it seemed you’d never get the chance to let it out.”

“Turns out, that was due to my locket. My uncle had put a mechanism inside that suppressed my Spark.” She quirked a wry smile. “I guess getting mugged was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“ _Mille tonneres_. Why would he do that?”

“He was afraid of what would happen if the baron found me too soon. So was Dr. Beetle, although apparently he wanted to use me for his own ends.”

Dr. Glassvitch shook his head. “And Merlot expelled you simply for being an annoyance.”

Agatha grimaced. “And then he tried to kill me when I came to claim the castle. He shot Gil, too. The castle finally squashed him.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry it came to that. One could hardly call him a good man, but still... he was a colleague.”

Just then Kevin walked into the audience room, reading as he went. “Hey, Agatha—” He broke off as he looked up from the paper in his hands. “Oh, sorry, didn’t know you were with someone.”

“No, no, come in,” Agatha replied. “I wanted you two to meet anyway. Dr. Glassvitch, this is Kevin Tran, the political scholar I told you about. Kevin, Dr. Hugo Glassvitch.”

Dr. Glassvitch’s eyes lit up as he shook hands with Kevin. “Ah, the young man behind the new constitution! It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

“Standing on the shoulders of giants,” Kevin confessed with a wry smile.

“As do we all, in the sciences not least. Lady Heterodyne tells me you were forced to give up your education in America.”

Kevin nodded. “It’s kind of a long story, but the last two years, it seems like my mother and I have been running from one emergency situation into another. Even coming here was a major emergency. So yeah, I’m really looking forward to things calming down enough that I can go back to school.”

“I can imagine. And if you’re interested in attending TPU, you’d almost certainly qualify for the St. Thomas More Scholarship for Students of Politics; it’s one of the few full scholarships we offer that’s not reserved for impoverished sparks.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind. I don’t have any of my records with me, though.”

“Well, we can find ways around that, I believe. We don’t often see students whose records are inaccessible due to distance, but it’s not terribly unusual for a student’s records to be destroyed, either through no fault of his own or as collateral damage of a breakthrough. The university has a number of aptitude tests that you would take as part of the admissions process, and of course, having that constitution in your portfolio is a definite advantage.”

“It really isn’t all that original,” Kevin protested. “And we did have to revise it.”

Dr. Glassvitch shrugged. “But it’s practical—practical enough to be adopted in three kingdoms that had never dreamed of having any constitutional form of government even two months ago. That’s no mean feat, Mr. Tran, especially in Europa. Evil despots are the rule here, not the exception.”

Kevin glanced at Agatha. “I hope that’s about to change, sir.”

Dr. Glassvitch smiled. “Yes. So do I.”

* * *

With so much happening at once, it startled Agatha to look at a calendar one afternoon and discover that it was already mid-June. Adam and Lilith were out of the hospital at last. Tarvek, with the full might of the empire at his command, had whittled down the number of Lucrezia loyalists among the Knights of Jove to ten and had already begun plans for Europa-wide treatment of revenants and inoculation of the remaining populace against wasps. Castiel and Gadreel had been in and out, delivering messages and killing assassins when needed. Theo had officially taken over as head of the Home for Troubled Sparks, with Sleipnir as his assistant, and they and Agatha had been informally inducted into the Men of Letters. Sam and Charlie had been drafted to help Herr Dolokhov with the administrative preparations for the division of the empire and had to put the beacon engine project on hold, so Dean had built a special safe to store their computers and threatened the castle with grievous reprisal if anything happened to it. Wooster had been quietly recalled to England, but both Gil and Agatha had sent official requests to Queen Albia asking that he be named ambassador to the Heterodyne realm. And Gil, who’d been spending most of his time in Mechanicsburg when he could anyway, was now at Agatha’s side telling her it was time to pack up to go to Vienna.

“It’s a four-day flight in Castle Wulfenbach,” he explained. “And we need to get there a day or two early. Tarvek’s grandparents are taking care of most of the arrangements, but there are some we’ll need to help with, and he said he wants to introduce you around before the coronation.”

“Knowing Tarvek,” Violetta put in, “that’s as much to keep you alive as it is to make connections. I don’t _like_ the idea, because this is our family we’re talking about and Tarvek’s the closest thing to a decent human being we’ve produced in at least a century. But it’s better than the alternative, and it’ll show everyone that I’m in your service at his order, which will go a long way toward keeping me alive, too.”

Gil nodded. “He _is_ a spectacled cobra, but he’s still capable of being a better man than he was raised to be. I wish I’d realized that sooner.”

“Well, you realize it now,” said Agatha, “and I’m glad.” She kissed his cheek.

“A _hem_ ,” said Violetta.

“Spoilsport,” groused the castle.

Agatha rolled her eyes. “Is there anything we need to bring?”

“Tarvek said they’re planning a grand processional entrance into the city,” Gil replied. “I’ve already talked with the Winchesters; they’re bringing Baby. Zeetha and I will ride with them. But since you’re the Heterodyne, you should probably bring something that’s associated with the Heterodyne Boys. Didn’t they have some kind of mechanical chariot?”

“In the stories, they did. Castle?”

“It’s in the carriage house, Mistress,” the castle replied. “Klaus had it returned when it was found some years ago.”

“Oh, lovely. Ask von Zinzer to give it a tune-up and get it ready to load, would you? _Politely_ ,” she added quickly.

The castle huffed. “You _are_ Master Bill’s child. Very well.”

“Thank you.” Agatha returned her attention to Gil. “Are you sure you don’t want to ride with me, though? I mean, your father and mine were best friends.”

He took both her hands. “I know. But you’ll have Punch and Judy and the rest of the Mechanicsburg contingent. And I gave you a separate country for a reason. I’ll always be Prince of Skifander, I suppose, but for this, I’m going back to just plain Baron Wulfenbach. You deserve the chance to let the world see you standing on your own.”

Agatha bit her lip and nodded. “All right, then, if you’re sure.” She had a sneaking suspicion that there might be something else going on, since he didn’t normally go out of his way to deflect attention, but without a clearer idea of what it might be, she couldn’t argue against his reasoning. “The Men of Letters are officially associated with me, though.”

“Yes, but half of the membership is also American, ostensibly if not in fact, so between them and Zeetha, the focus is going to be on _foreign_ rather than on _Heterodyne_.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So you’re going to be hiding in plain sight? That’s not like you.”

He shrugged. “It’s Tarvek’s big day, and I’ll be seen enough when I have to go up and formally return the Valois lands to him. For once, the Pax doesn’t depend on my being the center of attention. In fact, it depends more on my _not_ being the center of attention. So I won’t be.”

She still suspected that wasn’t all, but there was even less to fault about that argument. “Well, just don’t try to use that invisibility lamp to try to sneak into town unannounced.”

“It’s not a lamp,” he returned, smiling at the comfort of the old argument. “Any particular reason why I shouldn’t?”

“Because then I’d have to have Zeetha ride with me as your father’s daughter, and I’m a little afraid of what she might do to embarrass me.”

He laughed and hugged her, and they got on with planning their respective packing lists. And once those were done, there was nothing to do but load everything and everyone onto Castle Wulfenbach and head for Vienna.

Once they were underway, however, Agatha was finally able to catch her breath and relax, which was a nice feeling. Zeetha wouldn’t let up on the training, of course, but there was nothing urgent that needed her attention; she felt more than confident leaving Mechanicsburg in Van’s capable hands. And that meant she could sit and talk with Adam and Lilith, with Zeetha, with Violetta, with Theo and Sleipnir, the Winchesters, Charlie, Kevin, the angels, Gil. She even spent one afternoon with Charlie Sparking out over a coronation present for Tarvek, the result of which was a pocket thinking engine that Charlie dubbed a life-signs detector, even though it could also be used to scan for more than biological energy signatures and as a control module for any number of remote-controlled weapons to eliminate any threats it detected. By the time they went to supper, Agatha felt she’d gained a sister and offered Charlie the position of Chief of Information Technology, which Charlie accepted with alacrity.

Tarvek caught up with them over Budapest, flushed with triumph over having succeeded in training the wasp eaters to distinguish between active revenants and cured ones. After that, he tended to monopolize both conversations and Agatha’s time, and she got the strange sense that Gil was letting him. She didn’t have time to wonder about it much, however, because a fair amount of Tarvek’s planning did genuinely involve her. Some of it was ceremonial, although a real problem had arisen with His Holiness of Avignon suddenly getting cold feet over whether to risk antagonizing Belfast, and thus the Corbettite Monks who ran Europa’s railways, over recognizing Tarvek.

“The Corbettites are neutral, and I want them to stay that way,” Tarvek explained. “That’s best for everyone. And truth be told, I’ve always rather liked the ones I’ve met. As independent as they are, however, they are officially under a vow of obedience to Belfast, so I understand Avignon’s hesitation—to a point. He’s still the only one with the authority to recognize a claim to the Throne of Lightning. And he’s already _in_ Vienna, so I don’t know who’s gotten to him.”

“We’ll talk to him,” Dean promised.

Sam looked concerned. “Dean.”

“I said _talk_ to him. Red fire. You think I can’t do diplomacy?”

“Well, since you got back from Purgatory—”

“I think,” Castiel interrupted, “that it might be wise for me to accompany you. Whatever hold has been placed on this man, it can hardly be of greater weight than the word of an angel.”

“Unless he’s been wasped,” Agatha noted. “You’d better take some revenant spray with you just in case.”

“And while they’re doing that,” Tarvek told her, “I’ll need you to come with me to Grandma’s chateau. As early as we’ll have to leave to get to St. Stephen’s precisely at sunrise, I’ve managed to talk her out of holding a ball the night before. But _everyone_ insists on meeting you, and they won’t wait until the coronation’s over. I think they mostly want to be sure you’re not going to turn into Euphrosynia on me.”

She bristled. “They’ve got a lot of nerve, considering how many of them were perfectly happy for me to turn into my mother!”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “I know. But Agatha, these relatives are powerful in their own right. You need them on your side. I can’t guarantee that they’ll respect my authority where you’re concerned. Just... come for a few hours to make a good impression. Please.”

She grimaced. “Can I bring a death ray?”

“No, but you can bring Violetta.”

“I knew it,” Violetta grouched. Zeetha elbowed her.

Agatha sighed. Gil and Violetta _had_ warned her this was coming, but they hadn’t foreseen the comparison to Euphrosynia. That rankled, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. “Oh, all right. I suppose I can be civil for a few hours.”

“Thank you,” Tarvek replied and kissed her cheek.

Gil couldn’t suppress a harrumph, which oddly made her feel better.

Castle Wulfenbach arrived outside Vienna too late the following evening for social calls to be polite, so it was the next day before the Winchesters and the angels went into town to persuade His Holiness not to back down and Agatha, Violetta, and Tarvek went to his grandmother’s palace. The building was impressive; the family... was overwhelming. At first they approached singly, starting with Princess Xerxsephina, who was all smiles and possibly genuine friendliness. But that lasted only until Agatha had met and spent half an hour conversing with Tarvek’s grandparents. Then people started showing up in droves, surrounding her in the halls, pushing her away from both Tarvek and Violetta and all talking at her at once. Not a few called her Euphrosynia. Not a few called her Lucrezia. Not a few called her only “Heterodyne.”

There were looks. There were leers. There were speculations about how soon she’d marry Tarvek and how many children they’d have—or whether she’d knife him in his sleep for taking a mistress or wasp him at the first opportunity. There were comments even less tactful than that. There were hands that pawed and pinched.

By the time Tarvek and Violetta caught up to her again, she had her back pressed against the door of a lab and was about to attempt to pick the lock without looking. It was a skill she hadn’t yet perfected, although Sam had given her a few lessons, but she was getting desperate.

“GET BACK!” Tarvek thundered, and everyone scuttled out of his way. “Blue fire, have you people learned _nothing_ from the last thousand years? If you value your life, _never_ back a Heterodyne into a corner!”

“I... wasn’t going to kill anyone,” Agatha said, not sure if it was true or not.

Violetta pushed her way to Agatha’s side. “Are you all right, my lady?”

“Now that I can breathe again.” Agatha was aware that she wasn’t exactly breathing _well_ , but having more space did help.

“Get her out of here, Violetta,” Tarvek ordered. “And YOU!” he added to the relatives still lining the halls. “Keep back, and keep your hands and your opinions to yourselves. That goes for tomorrow, as well. Lady Heterodyne is our guest, and I daresay she is not impressed.”

Agatha decided to keep her own opinion to herself. “Thanks, Tarvek,” was all she said before letting Violetta hustle her through the nearest exit and onto the airship.

It took some doing to find Gil once they arrived back on Castle Wulfenbach, and she and Violetta split up to look more efficiently, but eventually someone directed Agatha to Dean’s lab. And there, much to her surprise, was Gil, sitting on Baby’s bonnet with his legs stretched out and his back against the windscreen, staring off into space. She heard faint music from somewhere.

Then the music turned up as a rough-voiced man sang, “Hello, Dolly! / This is Louis, Dolly! / It’s so nice to have you back where you belong!”

Gil startled a little and looked at her. “Oh! Agatha! I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

“If I meet another Valois descendant before tomorrow, I may scream,” Agatha confessed. “What are you doing in Dean’s lab?”

“Oh, I... needed to have a conversation with Baby.”

 _Beep-beep_ , Baby confirmed.

“But I think we’re finished, so... walk with me?”

Agatha blinked. “Sure.”

“Golly gee, fellas, / Have a little faith in me, fellas...” sang Baby.

Gil glared back at the car but couldn’t quite suppress a smile. “Quiet, you.”

The music changed to some peppy instrumental with a lot of trumpets, and Agatha got the impression that if Baby had a face, she would be looking up and away and whistling in an attempt to look innocent. It reminded Agatha of Charlie somehow.

Gil chuckled and patted the bonnet as he got up. “Thanks, old girl.”

“Whenever you call me, I’ll be there,” Baby replied. “Whenever you want me, I’ll be there. / Whenever you need me, I’ll be there. / I’ll be around.”

He patted her again and smiled more broadly at Agatha as he walked to the door and offered her his arm. She took it and let him lead her away, trying not to read too much into the fact that Baby started playing some song about “walking my baby back home” as they left.

“So how are things on the ground?” he asked.

She groaned. “Too many people, and they kept crowding me. Tarvek finally had to intervene before I could build a death ray and start blasting.”

“Ooh. Sounds like you’d better tell me all about it.”

So she ranted, and he was right. That did help her feel better. So did having him there, listening and making sympathetic noises at all the right points. People seemed to be giving them a wide berth, but truth be told, she wasn’t really paying much attention to anything but being with Gil and letting off steam. It was... surprisingly comfortable, doing that.

“I can see why you had to escape,” he said as she finally wound down.

She sighed and hugged his arm more tightly. “I don’t know, Gil. It’s not the crowds as such. I get crowded in Mechanicsburg a lot. But it’s different somehow.”

“Sure. In Mechanicsburg, you’re the Heterodyne, and you’re loved.”

“That’s it. Yes, thank you. Here... I haven’t felt so hated since I left Beetleburg. All I could think was that I wanted to go _home_.”

“Yes,” he said quietly and slowed down. “Yes, I don’t blame you.”

She suddenly realized that they were walking down the corridor to the former student lodgings. “Gil?”

“You know what I realized today? Here I’ve been feeling sorry for the Winchesters for not having a home. But today it hit me... they’ve had more of a home than I have.”

She frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

“That’s why I went to talk to Baby. I gather she thinks I should have that conversation with Sam instead, but since he’s currently busy keeping Dean from threatening His Holiness....”

She clapped a hand over her mouth but couldn’t suppress an amused snort.

“Anyway, at least the Winchesters have had each other and Baby, even when she wasn’t self-aware enough to be able to communicate with them. This?” He stopped with a helpless gesture, looking around the empty hall. “This was never a home. This was a prison when I was a child. Everyone hated me. I was a nobody. Tarvek was nice to me, but then... then we got caught in the records vault, and Father told me who I was. Who _Tarvek_ was. And he made me betray my best friend.”

“Oh, Gil. Was that what caused you to break through?”

He nodded. “Von Pinn found me passed out in a lab beside Zoing. But Father decided he had to hide my Spark, so nobody knew. Until Theo and Sleipnir came along... Zoing was the only friend I had. And then there was Paris, which... well, was Paris. Of _course_ Father intercepted all the letters Theo and I sent each other, but at least I met Wooster there, and I had Bang most of the time, though she’s not the kind of friend I’d have chosen in other circumstances. Castle Wulfenbach, though....” He shook his head and looked around again. “Yes, I had Father when he wasn’t too busy running the empire or in one of his moods. But just living and working in the same place most of my life doesn’t make it home. And that’s all I’ve had here—a place to live, a place to work, and Wooster and Zoing and Bang for friends. Well, and the Jägers liked me, and Von Pinn cared about me in her own way. But I never belonged, even when everyone found out who I was and started being nice to me. And today I realized that being on an airship all this time, I’ve been just as rootless as the Winchesters have.”

“Why are you telling me this? Are you thinking of abandoning the castle?”

“No, I can’t, not entirely. Too many people live here, work here. Their lives and livelihoods depend on it. And there are people like Dr. Vapnoople who have nowhere else to go after what Father did to them.[1] I couldn’t justify scrapping the castle unless I manage to rebuild Wulfenbach somehow, and even then some of the more dangerous sparks would be easier to contain on an airship. So no, that’s not what I want. But after talking with Baby, I’ve realized what I do want.” He turned to face her fully and took both of her hands in his. “What I want, more than anything, is to make a home with you. Even Castle Heterodyne would be heaven if you were there. Please, Agatha... will you marry me?”

“Oh, _Gil_ ,” she breathed and hugged him without thinking. Then she added into his shoulder, “At least it’s better than your first proposal.”

He chuckled and rubbed her back gently.

“I want to say yes. I do. You know I love you. But I care about Tarvek, too, though I’m not sure I trust him completely even now. But if his court’s going to be as bad as his relatives, that wouldn’t be much of a home, either. I can’t stay in Vienna, and I don’t want to live in Paris. I want to go back to Mechanicsburg, and I could do that with you. But still... oh, I wish I knew my own mind. I’m sorry.”

“How about a conditional yes, then? If Tarvek hasn’t made you a better offer by the end of the week, say, then you’ll marry me. After all, I did propose first. Twice.”

She pulled her head back and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What are you up to?”

“Me? Nothing!” He tried to look innocent and didn’t quite succeed.

She laughed and put her head back on his shoulder with the intent of trying to think. But her mind wasn’t processing rationally at the moment. All she could think about was Gil, warm and solid and grounding, his arms and his scent and his heartbeat promising love and loyalty. And he _had_ actually asked her. Tarvek hadn’t, at least not yet, despite his declarations of love. She knew he _wanted_ to marry her, but... no, he hadn’t actually asked.

“A conditional yes, then,” she said. “But I don’t want a ring yet, and we say nothing to Tarvek until after the coronation.”

Gil nodded. “Fair enough. Thank you.” Then he kissed her tenderly.

“For what it’s worth?” she said once she’d caught her breath. “I think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, except maybe Zeetha.”

He smiled. “Thank you. It’s worth a lot.” Then he sighed. “C’mon. We should go before Violetta comes looking for us.”

She nodded and stepped back, then took his arm again and walked away with him. But she couldn’t help putting her head on his shoulder, and she was sure he didn’t mind.

After a few moments’ silence, however, she said, “You know, the Home for Troubled Sparks is coming along nicely. It might make Krosp happy if we move Dr. Vapnoople there.”

Gil chuckled and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. “I knew I loved you for a reason.”

* * *

His Holiness, it turned out, _had_ been wasped and was being controlled by a nest of Geisterdamen that had been living in the sewers beneath the cathedral. Gadreel got him with the revenant spray and stood guard over him while Sam, Dean, and Cas, back in Team Free Will fighting form, took care of the Geisters. Fortunately, they’d learned in Sturmhalten that conventional ammo was enough—whatever the albino moon chicks actually were, they weren’t as tough to kill as most monsters the Winchesters had faced in their own world. The pope was so grateful and impressed that he agreed to go through with the coronation as planned. With that settled, all that remained was for Tarvek to have his conventional overnight prayer vigil while everyone else went to bed as early as possible so as to be up and at the parade route by oh-dark-thirty.

There was one thing still worrying Dean, however. And by the time he went to oversee Baby’s transfer to the transport ship taking them to the parade route, he’d realized he needed to address it. So he asked Sam to call the others over.

“Others?” Sam asked. “As in—”

“Our group, I mean the ones from our world.”

Sam nodded and did so. Gil and Zeetha were busy talking with Agatha as the ship took off, so this was probably the best chance they were going to get to have this conversation. Not that Dean liked having this kind of conversation, but he was going to keep worrying unless they had it.

As everyone whose presence he’d requested gathered around Baby in their court finery, Dean looked around to make sure no one else was paying attention—which might not preclude big ears, he knew, but still—and then sighed and sat down on the hood he’d washed and polished the night before. “So. We might not get another chance to talk this over. If everything goes according to plan today, though... it’s probably only gonna be another couple months before Agatha wants to go to Oz, see the Wizard. We can get back to our world from Oz, easy. Question is whether we want to, whether we should. I mean, obviously, we don’t all have to agree, but... yeah. So.”

Gadreel shook his head. “Our grace is tied to this world by the Dyne. We cannot leave.”

“He’s right, Dean,” said Cas. “But don’t feel you have to stay for that reason.”

Dean quirked a wry smile. “Dude, this ain’t like Purgatory.”

“Well, in a way, it is. We’re in exile, cut off from the Host we know. But at the same time, no one here wants to kill us—at least, no one who could actually do us harm. And I can no longer do worse damage to Heaven than I already have. Here we can help restore order, heal the land and the people.”

“And protect Agatha and her friends,” Gadreel added. “Even Zeetha, Violetta, and the Jägers can’t protect her against everything.”

“Yes, true.”

Dean nodded and looked at Kevin. “What about you? Gonna take that scholarship to TPU?”

“Actually, yeah,” Kevin replied. “I mean—” He paused, swallowed hard, and looked up a little. “Mom, if you’re reading this... you know I love you, and I miss you. But it sounds like you’ve found something important to do, and so have I. I’m not a spark, but I’ve got a good shot at a decent career in politics here. I like working with Agatha. And y’know... yeah, if I stay, somebody might try to kill me. But if I go back, somebody _will_ kill me because I’m a prophet.”

Dean looked at Charlie next, and she answered, “Dude. Back home, I’m an unemployed hacker with an XBox and a LARP guild. Here? I’m a _spark_. And I work for _Agatha Heterodyne_. This place? Is seriously a dream come true. It’s better than _Oz_. The only thing I don’t have is a girlfriend, but honestly? I’ve got real friends. For the first time in, like, ever. And I’ve got you guys, who are the best big brothers I could ever wish for. I’m staying... and I kinda hope you’ll stay, too.”

He smiled at her and looked around at Baby. “You got an opinion, girl?”

“This one thing I will vow ya,” sang Micky Dolenz, “I’d rather die than live without ya.”

Dean patted the hood and turned to Sam. “Well?”

“The Men of Letters are our legacy, and so is hunting,” Sam noted. “But that legacy’s already been handed on in our world. I mean, how many times have we pulled that world off the ledge? Sooner or later, we’re not gonna be around to do that anymore. And by now... it sounds like ‘sooner’ came the day we got pulled into this world. I’m not sure how many years we’ve been gone at this point, but it ought to be long enough that the Women of Letters have convinced the rest of the hunting world that we’re not coming back. Plus, look at you, Dean. I haven’t seen you this relaxed and happy since before you went to Hell. We’ve got a good life here. There are things to hunt and people to save, but it’s not like the whole universe is conspiring against us, the way it was in our world. So let’s stay and build the Men of Letters here.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Gonna miss everybody we’re leavin’ Upstairs.”

“Well, hell, maybe Jody and Mrs. Tran can figure out a way to sneak ’em out of Heaven and ship ’em here. Or maybe Gil and Agatha can. Or maybe when the time comes, we can find a way to cross the gap ourselves. After all, we’re sparks, right?”

“ _And_ Winchesters,” Charlie added. “And when you work together? There’s _nothing_ the Winchesters can’t do.”

At that, something deep down in Dean’s soul eased. He hadn’t fully wanted to admit it up to now, but he _did_ like it here, now that he’d had some time to get used to things. It was a hell of a lot better than the television universe, where nothing was real even off the set. He’d have his family with him. He’d have time to build cars if he wanted. Chances he’d be solely responsible for saving the world yet again were slim. Chances of the playbook getting changed enough that he didn’t even know right from wrong anymore were even slimmer. And most importantly, Sam was happy here, too.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s go crown us a Storm King.”

 _Beep-beep!_ Baby agreed, and Charlie hugged him.

* * *

Vienna had pulled out all the stops to welcome Tarvek, and Gil didn’t feel even remotely jealous that Tarvek was being greeted with such pomp and fanfare. There were far worse ways to lose an empire, after all. As it was, he was perfectly content to sit in his usual place in Baby’s back seat with his twin sister, Sam and Dean in the front seat and all the other Men of Letters except Wooster and Agatha on foot flanking the car. Sleipnir had opted for a dress for the first time since Gil had known her, but Charlie was wearing a riding skirt that was probably the closest thing to trousers she’d been able to convince a Mechanicsburg seamstress to make for her given the occasion. Both outfits were a black silk as glossy as Baby’s paint, and with their silver jewelry, they looked almost as uniform as did the men and angels in their white tie suits and Men of Letters badges. Even Zeetha had agreed to coordinate, although her outfit was mainly steel ‘armor’ and black chiffon draped here and there in a way that Mamma Gkika and Higgs probably approved of but Father almost certainly wouldn’t.

Speaking of Higgs, he was one of the few other Wulfenbach men Gil had brought and was marching between Baby and Agatha’s chariot. Gil couldn’t help wondering if that was intentional. But with any luck, his mysterious retainer’s loyalties wouldn’t be divided much longer. And given the way people were cheering for Agatha, Gil wasn’t sure anyone was paying much attention to Higgs.

The coronation itself went on for ages, although a decent chunk of time was eaten up by the procession into the cathedral. There were far more investitures and prayers and whatnot than at Sturmhalten, plus formal declarations of fealty from the Knights of Jove and the various principalities Gil was handing over to Tarvek, and Gil had to stand beside the Lightning Throne for all of those transfers of loyalty to give his official release for each one. His Holiness somehow contrived for all that to take the full eight hours from sunrise so that he could place the Lightning Crown on Tarvek’s head precisely when the sun was at its zenith. But that was the end, aside from the recessional, and then it was off to the Imperial Palace for banqueting and reception of embassies before the grand ball that was supposed to start right after dark. The feast was excellent, of course, and Gil didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted by the number of outlying principalities that asked to join Tarvek’s new empire. But as the afternoon wore on, Dean started fidgeting, and Gil understood why. He could hardly contain his own nerves anticipating the reveal of Wooster’s twist to Plan B. Unfortunately, since Tarvek had insisted on Gil and Agatha standing at his right hand the whole time, Gil couldn’t fidget.

Then at long last, the British ambassador was announced, and Gil’s heart sped up as the ambassador (who wasn’t Wooster) approached the throne, bowed, and conveyed “Her Undying Majesty’s compliments on your achievements in restoring the peace of Europa.”

When the ambassador didn’t continue, Tarvek frowned. “That’s curiously precise phrasing. Was there nothing more?”

“There is just one detail,” the ambassador went on. “Her Majesty wishes to inform you that her acknowledgment of your accession, as well as any possibility of alliance between our two empires, is conditional upon your agreeing to wed Her Royal Highness, Princess Urania.”

The room fell dead silent.

“I—you—she—what?!” Tarvek spluttered.

“You need not give your answer right away,” the ambassador stated. “Her Majesty is pleased to allow you until the end of next month to make your decision. Good evening.” He bowed and left.

Tarvek was still trying to form a coherent sentence. “What—but—what—” Then his eyes went wide, and he rounded on Gil. “YOU!”

“CHECKMATE!” Gil crowed and kissed Agatha soundly.

* * *

[1] Dr. Dmitri Vapnoople, Krosp’s creator, was also responsible for the creation of some pretty fearsome constructs, such as an army of talking bears left in the care of Martellus von Blitzengaard—at least until Baron Wulfenbach captured him and rendered him harmless by using him as the subject of a brain coring experiment. “Dr. Dim” was last seen in GG canon working as a janitor on Castle Wulfenbach.


	18. Epilogue: Mysteries Revealed

“It’s what?” Zeetha asked Violetta on the way to Gil’s office on Castle Wulfenbach two days later. Gil wasn’t there, she knew, but that was one reason she was going now.

“Morganatic,” Violetta repeated. “Gil’s keeping his titles, but the land goes to Agatha, and all their children will be Heterodynes rather than Wulfenbachs. Pretty brilliant, if you ask me, even though it was a dirty trick to get her away from Tarvek.”

“What about Skifander?”

“Oh, good heavens, no. Skifander’s yours. But it would be anyway, right? Isn’t your society matriarchal?”

“Well, yes, but... if anything did happen to me....”

Violetta put a hand on Zeetha’s arm. “Make sure it doesn’t.”

Zeetha wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she just smiled.

Violetta squeezed her arm and let go as they walked into the empty office. “So what are you looking for in here, anyway?”

“Barry’s journal. Sam said Cas brought a copy and it got left with Gil somehow, and it sounds like part of it’s in Skiff. So... well, I’m curious, that’s all. Mother said she knew him.” She’d said more than that, in fact, but most of what she had said was cryptic, and Zeetha hadn’t understood any of it until she’d gotten here and learned about the war with The Other. Now she hoped this journal would make sense of the rest.

“Oh! All right. Say, if we’re all going to Skifander after the wedding, do you think you could teach me some of the language?”

“Sure! I need to teach at least Agatha and Gil anyway, so you’d be welcome to join us.”

Violetta smiled. “Thanks! Well, I’ll let you get on with your reading and go see what kind of trouble the Winchesters are getting Tarvek into.”

Zeetha laughed, and Violetta left. Then Zeetha made her way to the shelf where Gil had told her the journal would be. As she pulled the small volume off the shelf and examined it, she realized that it was probably the original version, not a copy Cas or Kevin had made. The paper smelled old, though it wasn’t as fragile with age as she might have thought, and the Skiff at the beginning was written with the speed and ease of someone who knew the letters and the language, not the caution of someone copying unfamiliar shapes. Her curiosity piqued further by the first few lines, she found a chair and sat down to read, deciding to focus only on the parts written in her native language.

 _I can’t find Bill_ , Barry began. _Lucrezia did something just as he shot her, threw him through some kind of portal—but I haven’t been able to find where it led. The gateway to the land of the Geisterdamen is destroyed. If he’s in Skifander, Zantabraxus hasn’t seen him. If he’s in Europa, the trail is too long cold... though I don’t know why he wouldn’t have tried to find Agatha and me._

_Poor Agatha. I hated leaving her behind with Punch and Judy, especially with the locket suppressing her Spark, but I had no choice. Klaus cannot be allowed to find her too soon... especially after what I saw in the Geisters’ mirror. But her accession will not go smoothly—she’s going to need both Bill and me one day. And if what Zantabraxus told me about her twins is true, so will Klaus’ boy._

_So I’ve been searching other worlds. It may be a vain hope, since there are countless possible universes out there, but I have to try. There has to be some way for me to thwart the disasters I saw. Yet so far, nothing has turned up that would give me even a clue as to where Bill might be. What’s strange is the effect of the Spark in these places. It’s often diminished, which I suppose is to be expected, but usually I still have my accustomed range of scientific gifts—and nothing more. Here... here I have visions._

_By the Lion, I wish I knew what I’m doing here._

_I’ve been captured, that much I know, and turned over to a man called Eliot Ness. He tells me I’m in America (how?), that the year is 1945, and that America and its allies have just fought a great war with Germany and Japan. So I’m trying to school myself to speak English with a Mechanicsburg accent to hide my education and not lapse into German if I can help it. Herr Ness thinks I’m psychic and is going to take me to a friend who can at least get me new clothes. She might also be able to help me in my search for Bill or explain the visions I’ve had. In the meantime, he has given me this journal so that I can record my thoughts—not for the Bureau of Investigation he serves, but for what he calls “hunters,” since he said that what Bill and I have done to keep peace in Europa is much like what these hunters have done to keep peace in this world. They hunt monsters, it seems, and ghosts and demons._

_Yet I cannot afford to trust Herr Ness completely, not until I know for certain that Lucrezia has never influenced this world. So for now I write in Skiff. If and when that changes, so will my choice of language._

_No hope of seeing Thundering Engine Woman again, I suppose. It seems Europans here drove out the natives long ago, or rather confined them to territory far from here. A shame._

* * *

_August 18, 1945  
Canton, Ohio, United States of America_

_Horseless carriages are very different in this world—all carriage and no horse, not even a mechanical one. And they run on petrol, apparently, not coal. I told Herr Ness that I’d like to take one apart and see how it works, and he laughed and said I might get the chance before I go. If he finds that the search for information will take a great deal of time, he will place me in “witness protection” (!) to give me a cover identity and a job. That’s an improvement over Rivendell, of course, where there was never anything I could take apart, but it doesn’t quite scratch the itch yet._

_Ezra Moore must be a spark, whatever that designation translates to in this world. She’s kitted me out like a mechanic, the better (she says) to convince people that I’m from Mechanicsburg, but she’s also given me a handsome suit in case certain people she knows wish to meet with me. She thinks they will, and Herr Ness agrees with her that I should look like royalty for that meeting. She’s even agreed to have a jeweler friend make me a Heterodyne tie tack. I offered to pay, but even gold would raise too many questions, as Europan history is too different and my coins would not be recognized as legitimate currency. We can discuss barter later, they say._

_Frau Moore has not been able to help me make sense of my visions; when first I described them to her, she said they sound to her like the future of my Europa, not this world. But then she told me of another stranger who visited her last autumn, and though he didn’t sound much like Bill, she thought perhaps I might be able to receive visions of him from contact with the few things he left behind. I agreed to the experiment... and ah, the visions that came! I almost wish I hadn’t_

_He was a spark, a strong spark—not Bill, indeed, but he could have been the scion of one of the great houses in our world. His name was Dean... Dean W. The last name escapes me now. He had a brother named Sam, also a spark but in a different mode. So was their father, whose character seemed to have been formed from equal parts of Bill and Klaus. They were hunters—and more. I dare not set down all I saw, for much of it was terrible, but... for all that, Sam and Dean were very much like Bill and me._

_Were? Will be. For Dean was brought here from the future by a monster and returned thence, thanks to Sam._

_Perhaps, if I can’t find Bill, these two will be the answer._

_No more for now. The experiment left me deeply weary, and Frau Moore insists that I rest tonight while she contacts her friends. I must try, of course. But I fear what tidings my dreams will bring._

* * *

_August 20  
Canton, Ohio_

_This morning Herr Ness has allowed me to repair one of his automobiles (“car” for short—very common, but they don’t seem to have any other kind of transport clanks apart from armored “tanks” used for war and flying machines called “airplanes”; there have been too many airship disasters in the last few years for their use to be continued). But it seems the chance to indulge my Spark may already be at an end. Herr Ness and I leave after an early lunch for the requested meeting with Frau Moore’s contacts._

* * *

_August 21  
Normal, Illinois, United States of America_

_Thundering Engine Woman’s clanks might have been more exciting, but roads in this world are greatly improved over the America we knew. Herr Ness and I left Canton at noon, stopped only for food and fuel, and arrived here shortly before midnight—and I know he was not driving the car at top speed._

_The real shock, however, was meeting Frau Moore’s contacts, the Men of Letters—specifically a man named Winchester whose son, Henry, is of an age with Agatha in the visions and looks strikingly like Bill. He isn’t, of course, nor is his father, nor is his parentage in doubt. They have no evidence that Bill has been here. But they are sparks, and I know, even without having visions to confirm it, that this is the family from whom Sam and Dean will spring._

_The Men of Letters have offered an exchange: everything I know about my world for all the aid they can give, protection as well as a worldwide search for Bill. I have accepted, even though the likelihood of finding Bill here seems small. I need to get to know these Winchesters._

_Agatha needs Sam and Dean._

* * *

_September 20 (I think)  
Men of Letters Stronghold, Lebanon, Kansas, United States of America_

_My dreams are troubled lately. I still believe Sam and Dean will be the solution to the problems I have seen, and I will continue to tell the Men of Letters that some of their number will be needed to help Agatha._

_But what if she’s not the one who needs the help?_

_Agatha is a Heterodyne. She will take Mechanicsburg, of that I am sure. I’ve never been the most religious man, but even the fact that Bill and I were able to find her among the Geisters and return her to Europa before Lucrezia could corrupt her suggests that God, or some other higher power, is looking out for her._

_But from all I’ve seen, she and Klaus’ son Gil seem destined for each other. And that’s worrying. Gil will have the might of the empire to work for him, but what of that? Those forces aren’t as loyal to Klaus as Mechanicsburg will be to Agatha. The Jägers will help him only so far. Castle Wulfenbach is no Castle Heterodyne. And Klaus... well, even if I’m wrong, Klaus isn’t Bill. Or Punch, for that matter._

_I can’t risk sending Sam and Dean through the cathedral mirror. I had trouble enough getting in to use it myself without alerting the abbess—Bill wasn’t aware of it, but she’s a Storm King loyalist, sent by the archbishop specifically to aid whatever false Heterodyne heir the Order can wrangle. It’s a wonder she hadn’t turned against us sooner, though that might have been Lucrezia’s doing. She’ll turn against Agatha given half a chance._

_The longer I stay here, the harder it is for me to be sure of anything I’ve seen. I know both too much and too little. Even my sense of time is confused; the sanctuary the Men of Letters have granted me is in an underground fortress, and it’s been days since last I saw the sun. And I can’t stay for much longer—the more I hesitate in any one world, the lower my chances of finding Bill become, especially if he’s looking for me or moving through other worlds trying to find the portal that leads home._

_So I’m building a fail-safe into the portal-forming device that will bring Sam and Dean to the children. If they are in fact sparks, the device will bring their clank(s) with them, but no other technology that would not belong in our world. But when it asks their identity, it will say first that it does not recognize whatever they tell it and prompt them again. If they say only that they are hunters, or only that they are Men of Letters, it may be Agatha who needs them—either for their fighting skill or for their Spark, for the two domains appear not to overlap here as things stand now. If so, the portal will open at Castle Heterodyne; Agatha will be there and will know where best to employ them. But if they claim both, it may be Gil who needs them. Gkika will know, so the portal will open at her bar. Sinclair has also found a spell to place on the portal so that anyone who passes through it will be able to understand, and be understood by, anyone speaking German or Romanian. We dare not expand the parameters beyond that, but Agatha knows English already, and even in Paris, translators should be easy to come by if the Winchesters don’t speak French._

_Sinclair calls for me. I must go—and pray God the Spark does not kill them all._

Zeetha gently closed the book. “Thank you, Barry,” she whispered in Skiff. “Mother was right. You did save us in the end. And so did Sam and Dean.”

Dean poked his head in the office door just then. “Hey, Zeetha, Tarvek’s about to propose to Charlie to try to get out of marrying Urania. You want to come watch the fireworks?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she replied, sliding the book back onto the shelf—with no intention of revealing the contents of the Skiff sections to anyone.

And hidden from mortal sight, a certain Trickster archangel who had accompanied Castiel and Kevin through the wormhole to ensure their safe arrival unwrapped a lollipop and followed Zeetha out of the library, chuckling to himself in anticipation. These kids were _fun_.


End file.
